What to make of the Citi attack?

So was Citigroup really attacked by sophisticated Russian cyber thieves who made off with millions of dollars? No less than the Wall Street Journal reported as much not too long ago. Citigroup's Citibank subsidiary was apparently targeted over the summer but the attack in question may have occurred up to one year earlier.

The FBI, National Security Agency, Homeland Security, and Citigroup reportedly worked together to investigate the attack. The story was met with an immediate denial on the part of the bank, which jumped into story-control mode. It did acknowledge that a customer lost 41 million from an account, but the bank called that an isolated incident.

The paper, however, stands by its story. So what are we to believe? Well, it would be hard to believe that the bank wasn't targeted. Every bank is in the cross hairs these days. So an attempt such as this is not hard to believe. The tricky part involves the loss of money from customer accounts. The bank pretty much has to do what it can to keep calm among its customers. Acknowledging such a breach might be enough to spark a mini-run. You get the feeling something happened, but it's still murky as to what. Was the $1 million loss conflated into something larger? Perhaps.

For more:
- here's the article

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