The International Monetary Fund is the victim of a sophisticated, targeted attack that has compromised an unknown number of systems within the organization, Bloomberg reports.
The Washington, D.C. based organization sent employees a memo informing them that a desktop computer within the IMF had been compromised and “suspicious file transfers” detected, according to Bloomberg, which cites copies of the memos obtained by the news organization. Employees were reportedly warned, in a June 1 e-mail, to be on the lookout for suspicious e-mails and video links.
The 187 member organization, which was established after World War II to help promote economic development and fair trade globally, has been rocked in recent weeks by the sudden resignation of its president, Dominique Strauss-Kahn following his arrest for an alleged sexual assault in a New York City hotel on May 14. The hacking attack is reported to have occurred before Strauss-Kahn’s arrest.
The organization is also a user of RSA’s SecurID tokens and informed employees on June 8 that it would be replacing their tokens following the security breach at RSA. There is no indication that the hack of the IMF computers was linked to the breach at RSA.
Recent weeks have brought a slew of reports of attacks against high profile Western corporations, government and quasi governmental organizations. They include a breach at Citibank that netted credit card information on 200,000 customers, as well as attacks on L3 Communications and Lockheed Martin. The latter attack is believed to have resulted from the theft of information used to program SecurID tokens, RSA said.
