Bangladesh Bank Website Back Online After Cybersecurity Threat
Bangladesh Bank’s official website has resumed operations after remaining offline for around two and a half days over fears of a potential cyberattack.
The website became accessible again at 8:00am on Sunday, October 25. However, internet banking and mobile banking transactions continued as usual during the outage, causing no disruption to customers’ financial transactions.
Bangladesh Bank spokesperson and Executive Director Arif Hossain Khan confirmed the website’s restoration. He said it had been taken offline as a precautionary measure amid global cybersecurity threats. It was brought back online after a review of the security situation and the completion of necessary tests.
The shutdown was prompted by two serious security vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language. Known as “PHP-to-Shell” vulnerabilities, these flaws could allow malicious actors to execute unauthorised commands on affected servers, potentially putting website files, databases and sensitive information at risk.
The government’s cybersecurity agency, BGD e-GOV CIRT, issued an alert about the vulnerabilities on October 22.PpIn response to the security threat, several commercial banks and government institutions in Bangladesh also temporarily shut down their websites, alongside Bangladesh Bank. The relevant organisations were advised to check which versions of PHP were running on their servers and apply the necessary security updates.
However, there has been no confirmed information indicating that Bangladesh Bank’s website was directly subjected to a cyberattack or that any data was stolen.
