IMF targeted by a "serious" cyberattack

NEW YORK (AP) - The International Monetary Fund, already reeling from last month's arrest of its former leader, is investigating an attack on its computer system.

IMF spokesman David Hawley said the organization is fully functional. He declined to provide further details on what he termed an "IT incident," including its scope or nature and whether any sensitive data were taken. The IMF has confidential information on countries in financial trouble.

The New York Times cited unnamed IMF officials as saying the attack was sophisticated and serious.

The IMF told staffers about it on Wednesday but hasn't made a public announcement.

The IMF is already facing a headache after the arrest of its former leader, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was charged with sexually assaulting a maid in a New York hotel.

The IMF has been at the center of bailout programs for three European countries, and possesses information on several others that could be on the brink of economic failure, which means its database could contain information that could literally move international markets, The New York Times reports.

Although it is unclear what exactly the hackers were after, the IMF possesses data that would be "political dynamite in many countries," The New York Times reports.

Due to the attack, the World Bank - which works more in the developing world than the IMF - cut the computer link between the two institutions, although an official insisted to The New York Times that the move was made simply out of "an abundance of caution," and not any breach in their network too.

Amid the IMF's problems, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens and others are vying for the institution's top job. Stanley Fischer, Israel's central bank chief, emerged as a candidate Saturday.

It's not clear if hackers were targeting the IMF. Hackers sometimes try to distribute malicious software code widely and see which organizations it can infect.

But they can also choose targets. Using a technique called "spear phishing," for instance, they can trick employees of a specific organization into clicking a link that then gives hackers access to its computer systems.

Dave Jevans, chairman of computer security firm IronKey Inc., said he's concerned by an uptick in "hacktivism," where groups target organizations for political purposes.

It's possible the IMF was the victim of such hacktivism. However, one official cited by the Times said the attack occurred over the last several months, before the troubles involving Strauss-Kahn.

The IMF attack follows a string of major data breaches.

In recent months, hackers have penetrated 100 million Sony PlayStation accounts, the networks of Lockheed Martin and the customer email databases of a company that does marketing for Best Buy and Target stores.

Google has accused Chinese hackers of targeting the Gmail accounts of U.S. government officials.

About 200,000 Citibank credit card customers in North America had their names, account numbers and email addresses stolen.