BB website back online after 3-day shutdown over global cyber threat

 
Bangladesh Bank’s official website is back online after a three-day shutdown as a precaution against the risk of global cyber-attacks.

The website was taken down on Thursday evening amid heightened concerns over potential cyber threats. It was back up again on Sunday morning, the first working day of the week after a five-day holiday for banks.

The central bank had said on Saturday night that the website would be down until the threat had passed.

However, its information technology team had already made preparations to restore access on Sunday morning, according to bdnews24.com. 

Bangladesh Bank spokesperson and Executive Director Arief Hossain Khan said on Saturday night that the team was ready to restore the website, but the risk remained.

“There are preparations to restore it, but the risk still exists,” he said around 8:30pm. “The website will not be brought back online as long as the global threat persists. The IT team remains on alert around the clock.”

The central bank had planned to bring the website back in line with the resumption of banking operations on Sunday after the consecutive five-day holiday. It was made accessible to the public in the morning as planned.

The precautionary shutdown followed a warning from the European Union’s cybersecurity agency after two serious security vulnerabilities were identified in PHP, a widely used programming language worldwide.
The agency advised temporarily shutting down websites potentially affected by the vulnerabilities if security updates could not be applied promptly.

Following the warning, Bangladesh Bank opted to take its website offline as a precautionary measure.