Two of Canada’s biggest banks BMO and CIBC have reported that they have been targeted by hackers and that the personal information of over 40,000 customers may have been stolen or compromised. The hackers had broken through the security of these institutions and are now demanding a ransom of over $1 million or they will make the information public.
The Bank of Montréal and CIBC’s Simplii financial services department have received email threats on the weekends that hackers have access to personal and account information belonging tens of thousands of customers and are now demanding 1 million USD from each bank in the shape of crypto currency. Failing to do so , the hackers will release all the information to the public which can be a disaster for these institutions. This can result in multiple lawsuits as the banks failed to secure customer’s data. The banks were however quick to respond and commented that they would fully reimburse customer for any financial impact of unauthorized transactions. Welcome to the new normal of hacking winner anything and everything is possible. Despite spending millions and millions of dollars every year on security, hackers have been able to preach all major security firewalls and continue to create new since in this world of technology. This of course is a serious concern for all major institutions around the world as there is so far no despite from hacking and malware which is a flourishing industry. The hackers are always getting better and better and winning the battle.