Gtron Solutions has just been notified that the World Bank Group network (one of largest data repositories of sensitive data) has been compromised by multiple people.
Authorities don't know just how much or exactly what data was infiltrated but it has been confirmed that the attack was deep and wide-spread, and between the months of June and July the culprits had full access to the bank's networks.
Two of the attacks originated from China and there are known to be at least four others, dating back as far as the summer of 2007. The most recent breach occurred last month.
This could very well be the most crushing blow of all time to the security of a worldwide financial institution. The bank's senior technology manager was cited saying the happenings are an "unprecedented crisis." The security techs at the bank are still in the dark as to the nature of just what occurred during the last year plus, and have been doing their best to keep the security leak from reaching the public.
President of the bank Robert Zoellick had planned to use the strength of the bank to usher in a new path to global financial stability, but now his bank and it's information infrastructure will certainly come under scrutiny knowing that his cybervaults have been compromised on several occasions over the course of more than a year.
The bank has yet to determine just how much data was stolen, but they have let it be known that at least 40 servers have been penetrated, one of which safe-holding contract-procurement data.
Zoellick and other executives have declined to be interviewed, as they try to sweep the whole matter under the carpet and hope the public won't take notice. One of the bank's spokespeople was quoted as saying "There were attempts to hack the bank's computer systems last summer, however, there was no compromise of confidential information," as if to imply this was a similar situation. It is not. In fact, things are in such a state that federal investigators have been called in. One of the heads of the bank's IT department from Washington D.C. said "We're not talking about hackers playing games or messing up our website." The source went on to say "It's about the FBI coming last summer and saying, 'You should take a look at your systems because we think something weird is going on.' It's about the intruders knowing what information they wanted - and getting to it whenever they wanted to. They took our existing data stores and organized them in a way that they could be easily accessed at will." The IT head also commented "They had access to everything. They had the keys to every room at the bank. And we can't say whether they still do or don't until we fully and openly address what's happening here."
It should not be misconstrued just how serious this matter is; sensitive financial information from every corner of the globe is stored on the World Bank's computer mainframe, including data for governments and companies. The intruders have certainly hit the financial jackpot for one of the biggest hacks in history but unfortunately we don't know just how devastating the damage will be; only time will tell.