In February 2016, Bangladesh was robbed of US$101 million by cunning cyber criminals using fraudulent SWIFT transfer requests. The money was siphoned from the Bangladesh National Bank’s account at the US Federal Reserve to banks in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Another US$850M was stopped from being transferred due to a happenstance. Check The Lazarus Heist for juicy details.

What made the heist possible? Timing. Careful, thought-out execution. Ruthlessness. The bank robbery took place during a weekend of Lunar New Year festivities in South Asia, so there wasn’t really anyone on call to check and stop the transfers. And it was preceded by nearly a year of preparation.

Computer criminals don’t take Christmas off (or New year, be it Lunar or Gregorian). Rather, they take advantage of the fact that IT has a few days of holiday, because being moral is bad for their kind of business.

Thus, this Christmas, and every Christmas, New year, Wappu¹ and Midsummer for that sake, stay a little extra vigilant with your IT, or just keep your hands off your computers, don’t install shady apps, click on dodgy links or get hit by phishing, scams and ransomware, and we’ll have a few good days of relaxing time off!