Dhaka:Bangladesh Bank has kept its website offline for a second consecutive day as a precautionary measure following a global cybersecurity alert, while its connections with commercial banks remain unaffected.
According to Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha, the central bank took the website offline on Thursday noon after receiving the alert and is continuing to monitor the situation to ensure its security. Arief Hossain Khan, executive director and spokesperson of Bangladesh Bank, stated that the website has not been restored to guarantee its full security.
The central bank's IT department is addressing the issue, though no specific timeline has been provided for restoring the website. As of 844 PM today, the site remains inaccessible, displaying a maintenance notice to visitors, which reads, "The Service is under Maintenance. Our service is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. We will be back online shortly. Thank you for your patience."
The decision to take the website offline comes amid global concerns over critical vulnerabilities disclosed in PHP, a widely used programming language. Cybersecurity firms Calif and Wiz identified the flaws using artificial intelligence tools. Although patches were released, details of the vulnerabilities became public before the fixes could be fully applied, prompting government warnings over global cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
Bangladesh Bank has previously encountered major cyber incidents, such as the 2016 hacking incident where $101 million was diverted from its account with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, leading to the resignation of then-governor Atiur Rahman. In 2023, the bank temporarily shut down some internal web-based services for 36 hours as a precaution against a possible cyberattack.