How Hackers Lost More Than $800 Million Due To A Silly Spelling Mistake

Short Bytes: Little do we realize the cost of a spelling mistake unless it costs someone millions of dollars. Here is a story of hackers who targeted Bangladesh Bank and were partially successful in transferring million of money until authorities got attentive seeing their silly spelling mistake.

It was not their fault, that was the money rush which whizzed the hackers to squeeze their fingers fast and make a typo mistake. And little did they know that one typing mistake would cost them millions otherwise they would’ve been successful in one of the biggest banking hacks in the history.

The story goes like this — A group of cyber criminals hacked into the servers of Bangladesh Bank. After hacking into the server, the hackers managed to get $81 million by sending money transfer requests to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The money transfer request was destined to various companies in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

There was a total of 13 transfer requests and everything was going smooth until a spelling mistake rolled out the ball from their court. After four successful transfers were completed, the group took their eye off the ball and spelled the word ‘foundation’ wrong, typing it as ‘fandation’. A single wrong spelling mistake caught the attention of the authorities at the Federal Reserve Bank. So, they decided to stop any further money transfer.

Those 13 transfers would have cost over $800 million if they had just concentrated on their spelling. Luckily, Bangladesh Bank managed to recover some of the stolen money and is now working with anti-money laundering authorities to trace the rest.

Had there not been any sloppiness in the spelling mistake, the hackers would have run rich and their fates had a different story to tell eventually.

Also read: Hacker Shows How To Hack Anyone’s Facebook Account

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