ICBC Pays Ransom to Hackers after Ransomware Attack

JAKARTA - The largest bank in China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), paid a ransom to cybercriminals who hacked their system last week. The statement came from representatives of the Lockbit ransomware group on Monday, November 13. However, this news cannot be independently confirmed.

ICBC's branch in the United States fell victim to a ransomware attack that disrupted trading on the United States bond market on Thursday, November 9.

"They paid the ransom, the deal is done," a Lockbit representative told Reuters via online messaging app Tox. ICBC has not responded to the report.

This ransomware attack comes at a time of increasing concern about the resilience of bond markets, which are a critical part of the global financial system.

The freeze on broker-dealer ICBC in the United States left it temporarily indebted to BNY Mellon by 9 billion US dollars, an amount much larger than its net capital.

The attack was so widespread that corporate email at the company stopped working, forcing employees to switch to Google email.

"The market is mostly back to normal now," said Zhiwei Ren, a portfolio manager at Penn Mutual Asset Management.

Lockbit has hacked some of the world's largest organizations in recent months, stealing and leaking sensitive data in cases where victims refused to pay the ransom.

Within three years, the group has become the world's largest ransomware threat, according to US officials. In the United States, the impact has been devastating, hitting more than 1,700 American organizations in nearly every sector, from financial and food services to schools, transportation, and government departments.

Last week, Lockbit hackers published internal data from aerospace giant Boeing and stated on their website that they had infected computer systems at the London-based law firm Allen & Overy.