Cyber-attacks on SWIFT Systems of financial institutions

Abstract

From daily online payments to large financing transactions, online financial services make business behaviour convenient and fast. At the same time, attackers can use many means to damage this system. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system sets up a series of message standards to regulate the communication message format between all users, which greatly improves the business efficiency. Hackers with financial knowledge can get more familiar with SWIFT messages and make the traditional cyber-attacks more targeted or develop more threatening trojan viruses. This paper focuses on studying the cyber-attacks on SWIFT systems. The paper presents three different attacks and discuss how each attack can damage SWIFT users and profit the hackers.