Bangladesh Bank Website Shut Amid Cybersecurity Risks

Bangladesh Bank’s website has been taken offline as a precaution against potential cyberattacks following the identification of two serious security vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language. Authorities are reviewing the risks and working to restore the website as quickly as possible. The outage has drawn attention amid a high alert issued by the government’s computer incident response team, BGD e-GOV CIRT, over concerns about possible cyberattacks in Bangladesh.

On Thursday (October 22), a Bangladesh Bank official said the issue was not limited to the central bank. The website had been taken offline as part of a precautionary measure in response to a global security concern. It would be restored after the risks had been assessed, the official said.

Arif Hossain Khan, spokesperson and executive director of Bangladesh Bank, said the website had been taken offline because of an urgent security issue.

Visitors attempting to access the website are being shown a message stating that scheduled maintenance is underway. The notice says the service is currently under maintenance and will be available online again soon.

The message displayed on the website reads: “Our service is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. We will be back online shortly. Thank you for your patience.”

However, detailed information remains unavailable about the precise nature of the security problem, when the website was taken offline, and how long it may take to restore full service.

Visitors are also seeing a message about their computer’s operating system version. The notice states that Windows 10 or a later version is required to use the website, while indicating that the computer in question is running Windows 7.

It remains unclear whether this operating-system message is related to the security issue behind the website outage.

//DBTech/BBJR/SME/FOED//