Ft. Meade, Maryland. American government attempts to infiltrate worldwide banking operations have now been exposed, showing that America’s desire to know what other people are up to, knows no limits. American intelligence is breaching foreign banks to obtain information for American financial interests giving them the razors edge in competition with foreign finance.
The US National Security Agency (NSA), and accompanying documents appear to indicate a possible breach of the Swift global banking system. Such a hack could have enabled the US to covertly monitor financial transactions, researchers said.
The files were released by a hacking group that has previously leaked malware. If genuine, it represents perhaps the most significant exposure of NSA files since the Edward Snowden leaks in 2013. On Twitter, Mr Snowden described it as the “Mother Of All Exploits.”
A variety of criminal experts have said this latest “data dump” is credible, though the US intelligence institutions implicated have dismissed the claims. The Swift transaction system, which is headquartered in Belgium, said: “We have no evidence to suggest that there has ever been any unauthorised access to our network or messaging services.”
In the Swift network, smaller banks often make use of service bureaus to handle transactions on their behalf. Documents included in the leak suggest at least one major bureau has been data breached.
“If you hack the service bureau, it means that you also have access to all of their clients, all of the banks,” said Matt Suiche, founder of the United Arab Emirates-based cybersecurity firm Comae Technologies.
The NSA has posts in Kuwait, Dubai, Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and Qatar. Spreadsheets published by hackers appeared to list banks that had been breached with “implants” or secret data-gathering software. Analysis of the leaked files suggested the US government has the capability “to monitor, if not disrupt, financial transactions to terrorists groups.”