Maltese lender Bank of Valletta has resumed majority of its services after a cyber attack forced the bank to shut down all operations.
Earlier, the bank closed all its operations and disabled its website after it detected a cyber hack on its systems.
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Bank of Valletta cyber attack
Following the attack, Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told the parliament that hackers created false international payments amounting to $14.7m.
The amount was transferred to four foreign accounts in the UK, the US, Czech Republic and Hong Kong, Reuters quoted him as saying.
Soon after the detection, the bank suspended all operations to minimise further risks.
However, the Bank of Valletta claimed that customer accounts and deposits were not affected by the attack.
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By GlobalDataCurrently, all banking services have been restored except third party transfers. The bank resumed the service following successful testing of its IT systems.
In a statement, Bank of Valletta said: “This unfortunate incident proved that the contingency plans in place and the preventive measures taken by Bank of Valletta were appropriate and that these measures safeguarded the Bank, its customers and stakeholders.”
The lender has also traced the fraudulent transfers and is working to reverse the transactions. It has also undertaken an internal review to identify the source of the attack.
In the past, multiple Maltese banks fell victim to cyber attacks, however, a complete shutdown of operations is unprecedented.
