Could NatWest have been hacked?

MoneySaverLog

http://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2012/06/29/should-a-bank-admit-technical-problems-are-because-of-hackers/

Must admit this was my first thought, and posted about this on the 22nd June, http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=53968321&postcount=8, when they announced the initial problems at NatWest. We'll never know the real reasons I guess other than a so called "technical issue".

jonesMUFCforever

This would make more sense than a lowly IT consultant in India.

bobblebob

More conspiracy theories. Why cant things be as they appear on face value? Seems everything has to be a mass conspiracy these days

Im sure someone said they have to tell customers (banking code or something) if they have been hacked anyway

preable

thats what i think. cant see it beeing a indian worker lol.

jonesMUFCforever

bobblebob wrote: »

More conspiracy theories. Why cant things be as they appear on face value? Seems everything has to be a mass conspiracy these days

Im sure someone said they have to tell customers (banking code or something) if they have been hacked anyway

If they were hacked they would never in a million years admit it - it would be commercial suicide - I would predict a mass run on the bank ten times worse than Northern Rock in 2007. Everybody would take their money out in case it disappeared!

Scarpacci

Of course, if they were hacked and did admit it it's likely we'd be asking "Did RBS/Natwest run out of money?" or "Are they blaming a technical meltdown on hackers?". Whatever the "official" story is, certain segments of society will be adamant it's wrong, it's a lie and it's a cover-up. It makes no difference what the official story is, just the fact it's official is enough to make them doubt it. If they admitted hacking and people were arrested, we might be wondering whether they were really the guys or if it was a government-backed conspiracy to arrest members of Anonymous or Lulzsec and get them on huge charges.

It's hard to imagine what "hacking" a bank would really mean. You would not be able to steal the entirety of a bank's balance and, in the grand scheme of things, it's unlikely you could move much money at all. Hacking would let you manipulate 1s and 0s, to a degree, but you anything large would not be worth doing because it's sure to be spotted.

The only real hacking that could go on is what already happens: the (relatively) small scale "hacking" of individual customer accounts or basically stealing data, not money. And if a bank had been hacked and, for instance, significant amounts of customer information were stolen, shutting down and blaming technical error could not be the solution. They would have to come clean, be issuing new cards and account details, etc.