Crédit Mutuel Arkéa recovers part of money stolen in cyberattack

How the theft worked

The attackers got in through the platform of one of the bank's service providers. They then used Arkéa's own account to send transfers to other banks. The money was quickly converted into cryptocurrencies on specialised platforms, mostly into Monero, a coin whose transactions are very hard to trace.

From the start, Arkéa said part of the funds could be blocked. Some crypto platforms reacted in time to stop the conversion of funds, Crypto.com among them.

Customers not affected

Baal sought to reassure customers: "no individual account was touched". Even if personal accounts had been hit, he said, customers would have lost nothing, because the bank "would have been largely able to cover" any outflow. He added that deposit guarantee schemes would apply in any case, and that the incident does not call into question the strength of the system, though it is very damaging for the bank concerned.

The identity of the attackers remains unknown. Baal could not say whether they are French or foreign, and no group has claimed the attack. The Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation, handed to the Office anti-cybercriminalité (OFAC), with the aim of tracing those responsible.

Baal said the episode should serve as a lesson for the whole sector, adding that he is convinced the entire banking community is now looking at what could have happened to it.