A large Chinese, as in what both political parties used to call Red China, bank claims to have been hacked and among the results was a disruption to the market for U.S. Treasury securities.

According to CNN:

Hong KongCNN — 

A US unit of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) was hit by a ransomware attack this week that disrupted some of its systems, reportedly hitting liquidity in US Treasuries which may have contributed to a brief market sell-off on Thursday.

ICBC Financial Services, which is headquartered in New York, said in a statement that the attack, which happened on Wednesday, had been reported to law enforcement. It was in the process of investigating the incident and trying to recover from the cyberattack.

“We successfully cleared US Treasury trades executed Wednesday … and [repurchase agreements] financing trades done on Thursday,” it said in the statement.

Ransomware attacks are a form of cyber extortion. The perpetrator locks the victim’s data or networks and demands payment to unblock access.

The systems of ICBC’s head office in Beijing and other domestic and overseas units were not affected by this incident, nor was the ICBC New York Branch, the unit said.

Just search ICBC cyber attack November 2023 and it is widely reported.

But I cannot find anyone asking whether it is an actual computer criminal hack or a trial run by an actual cyber military division of a global disrupter, such as China, Iran or North Korea. Round up the usual suspects.

As if. 

If we all step back and think how the world wide web can bring all business and research to a halt, I wish there were, or had been, a more realistic look at why we are allowing the elimination of copper wire telcom infrastructure which could be or could have been the slower but more secure protection against a global internet freeze up and/or lockdown.

For those of us older ones, we remember when you could dial a number and get balances and transactions actually quicker than through the world wide web.

Progress often now is only a different way to do what had already been able to be done.

We won’t be able to read this site when the world wide web is taken down by some bad actor, which could happen.

“They,” whoever they will be, will have to find an old mimeograph to let us know their demands. 

I am sure they will find a way as the increasing number of ransomware occurrences are not showing us how secure we are but rather just how vulnerable we are despite large amounts of spending.

Here’s another stump-the-band call-out: Remember when politicians recognized the economic fundamental that all resources, including our tax dollars, are finite and the art is fair and efficient allocation?

Look how many uncertain theories are gobbling up tons of redirected cash flows while the world stumbles toward multiple catastrophes such as a global cyber ransom attack.

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