$10 Router, No Firewall Blamed In $80M Bangladesh Bank Hack (reuters.com)

Earlier this a year, a spelling mistake in an online bank transfer prevented nearly $1 billion heist at Bangladesh's central bank and the New York Fed. The hackers, however, still had managed to steal about $80 million. Bangladesh government blamed the New York Fed for not spotting the suspicious transactions earlier. As it turns out, they should also be taking some blame, if not all. An anonymous reader writes: Bangladesh's central bank was vulnerable to hackers because it did not have a firewall and used second-hand, $10 switches to network computers connected to the SWIFT global payment network, an investigator into one of the world's biggest cyber heists said. The shortcomings made it easier for hackers to break into the Bangladesh Bank system earlier this year and attempt to siphon off nearly $1 billion using the bank's SWIFT credentials, said Mohammad Shah Alam, head of the Forensic Training Institute of the Bangladesh police's criminal investigation department.