Bangladesh Bank keeps website offline after global cybersecurity alert

Bangladesh Bank kept its public website offline Oct. 23 after taking it down the previous day as a precaution following a global cybersecurity alert, The Daily Star reported.

Arief Hossain Khan, an executive director and spokesperson for the central bank, said officials were monitoring the situation and wanted to ensure security before restoring access. He did not give a reopening time.

Connections between the central bank and commercial banks were operating smoothly, Khan said. Visitors to the public website instead saw a maintenance notice.

The report linked the precaution to newly disclosed flaws in widely used web programming software. It did not report a confirmed breach of the central bank.

Bangladesh Bank had also suspended some internal web-based services for 36 hours in 2023 as a precaution against a possible cyberattack.