Hacker demands money from Swiss bank BCGE

Banque Cantonale de Geneve

09/01/2015 16:03

ZURICH/GENEVA, Jan 9 (Reuters) - A hacker claiming to be 
behind a cyber attack on Banque Cantonale de Geneve  BCGE.S , or 
BCGE, used social media on Friday to threaten to leak 
confidential data on the Swiss bank's clients if its demands for 
payment weren't met. 
    Judicial authorities said a Geneva prosecutor was handling a 
formal complaint lodged by the cantonal (state) bank on Jan. 6, 
but gave no details. 
    "A criminal complaint has been received from the Banque 
Cantonale de Geneve. An investigation is under way," Henri della 
Casa, spokesman for Geneva judicial authorities, told Reuters. 
    "These cases are very difficult, it is complicated to find 
the authors (of a cyber attack)." 
    In potentially the latest case of a breach of customer 
information at a financial firm, an anonymous person or group 
using the Twitter moniker Rex Mundi claimed it had hacked the 
Genevan cantonal bank's servers and downloaded more than 30,000 
emails by Swiss and foreign clients. 
    The hacker included names, addresses and messages to the 
bank from two people it said were BCGE clients, and said the 
remainder of the data it had stolen would be make public later 
on Friday if it was not paid 10,000 euros ($11,779).  
    Neither the identity of the self-described hacker nor the 
client data could be verified by Reuters. 
    BCGE said on Tuesday it had "resisted" a cyber-attack, and 
that information intercepted from its servers was "in no way 
critical and of no great use or even obsolete". 
    A bank spokeswoman said on Friday the bank was maintaining 
its position, without elaborating.  
    The hacker's tactics play into fears of tax dodgers and 
cheats using hidden Swiss accounts that their identity could be 
exposed. 
    "We would like to wish a merry tax audit to all the 
non-Swiss account holders listed in the BCGE files," the Rex 
Mundi account tweeted on Friday, one of 61 messages that range 
from detailing demands, to criticizing the bank for lax 
technology security, and taunting clients who may be at risk. 
    BCGE is one of a host of Swiss banks to come forward under a 
government-brokered scheme for banks to pay fines for helping 
wealthy Americans avoid tax by offering hidden offshore 
accounts.  ID:nL6N0JZ3R4  
    Last month, Switzerland charged a former computer analyst at 
HSBC's  HSBA.L  private bank in Geneva with industrial espionage 
and breaching the country's secrecy laws for passing 
confidential client data to foreign authorities.  ID:nL6N0TV1YI  
    ($1 = 0.8490 euros) 
 
 (Reporting by Katharina Bart in Zurich and Stephanie Nebehay in 
Geneva; Editing by Mark Potter) 
 ((Katharina.Bart@thomsonreuters.com; +41 58 306 7312; Reuters 
Messaging: katharina.bart.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net)) 
 
Keywords: BC GENEVE HACKER/