150 billion won stolen in French bank hacking... Money laundering with virtual currency

A local bank in France suffered a cyber attack and had 150 billion won worth of its own funds stolen. Although customer accounts were not damaged, the French financial sector was put on alert due to a large-scale outflow of bank funds.

French bank Credit Mutuel Arcea announced on the 4th (local time) that hackers accessed bank accounts and siphoned funds, AFP reported.

The bank did not disclose the specific amount of damage, but local media Le Telegram reported that the stolen funds amounted to about 100 million euros (about 150 billion won). The bank explained that its own accounts were damaged and that its customers' accounts were safe.

It is known that this attack was very similar in its intrusion method to the hacking suffered by Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.

According to French daily Le Monde, hackers penetrated deep into the banking system by hacking the computers of third parties with transaction authority. Afterwards, it was reported that he accessed the bank's equity capital and withdrew more than 100 million euros out of the 10 billion euros in funds held.

The stolen funds were converted to virtual currency and then distributed to several exchanges. Kraken, an American cryptocurrency exchange, detected an unusually large amount of funds being transferred from a European bank, issued an alert on the 3rd, and blocked transactions in progress.

The reason behind the hacking has not yet been clearly revealed. Zach

The Paris Prosecutor's Office began an investigation to determine the background to the incident and the route through which funds were leaked.

There are concerns in the French financial world that this incident has exposed the vulnerabilities of the traditional banking system.

“This is a big warning sign for the French and European financial sector as a whole,” one banker told Le Monde. “It shows that traditional banks still face significant risks.”

Gabriel DeVros, head of a cybersecurity consulting firm, also questioned the bank's control system, saying, "Generally speaking, there should be a set of mechanisms in place to prevent large-scale, uncontrolled movements of funds. Alarms should have been raised."