KARACHI: A cyberattack on the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) has been detected that has disrupted its services which are likely to be restored by Monday, said a statement issued by the bank on Saturday.

“In the late hours of the 29th and early morning of the 30th October, a cyberattack on the NBP’s servers was detected which impacted some of its services,” said the statement.

Immediate steps were taken to isolate the affected systems, it added. “At this point, no customer or financial data has been compromised.”

“Remediation efforts are under way using industry-leading subject matter experts, including international resources wherever required,” said the bank.

“While currently the NBP’s services to its customers are disrupted, we are working to address the breach and confident that essential customer services will be restored by Monday morning,” said the NBP statement.

“We are grateful for the understanding of our customers in this unusual situation…,” it added. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) tweeted that NBP had reported a cybersecurity-related incident which was being investigated.

“NBP has not observed any data breach or financial loss,” said the SBP, adding that no other bank had reported such an incident.

“The SBP is monitoring the situation closely to ensure safety and soundness of the banking system,” said the central bank.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2021