Bank websites shut one after another over cyber-attack fears; Bangladesh Bank site back after three days
The official websites of Janata Bank and Bengal Commercial Bank have been temporarily shut down to avert the risk of a possible cyber attack. When attempts were made to enter the two websites at around 12:30pm on Sunday, a system maintenance notice appeared. Repeated attempts afterwards also failed to access the portals.
With the websites down, ordinary customers cannot collect any information or receive digital services from the sites. The bank authorities have apologised to customers for the temporary inconvenience and expressed their resolve to restore services quickly.
The incident is not an isolated one. Special vigilance over cyber security has been in place across the country's financial and banking sector for several days. Because of the same risk, Bangladesh Bank itself had deactivated its main website last Thursday (22 October).
After remaining shut for three consecutive days, the central bank's website became operational again from 8am on Sunday. Bangladesh Bank spokesperson and executive director Arif Hossain Khan confirmed that the website had been restored.
During this period, the websites of Agrani Bank, IFIC Bank, Standard Islami Bank and SBAC Bank were also shut down. However, those sites have since returned to normal operations.
Bangladesh Bank spokesperson Arif Hossain Khan said, 'It is checked whether there is any flaw in the website. This decision had been taken amid fears of a global attack. As the risk has passed, the website has been reopened.'
The central bank said its information technology team monitored the situation over the following days and worked to ensure the website's security. Only after those checks were completed was the site opened to the public again.
Behind the alert lies a global technological risk. Two serious security flaws have recently been found in PHP, the programming language widely used to build websites. Since then, extreme concern over cyber security has arisen worldwide, and its ripples have reached Bangladesh's banking sector too.
Banking, government services, e-commerce and many online platforms now depend heavily on the internet and various software for their infrastructure. A large part of these digital systems runs on the PHP programming language, so a security flaw in that language can strike directly at the country's important financial services.
The reassuring news is that even while the websites were down, internet banking and mobile banking systems remained completely uninterrupted. As a result, customers faced no suffering in transactions; essential transaction services continued as before.
However, no specific time has yet been announced for when the Janata Bank and Bengal Commercial Bank websites will become operational again. With Bangladesh Bank's own site now back, it is assumed that once the security checks are complete, the remaining banks' sites will also be reopened one by one.
