French bank Credit Mutuel Arkea is seeking to recover an estimated 100 million euros stolen this week in a rare external cyber attack. The incident has been contained, and the bank confirmed that no customer accounts were affected. Hackers reportedly accessed the bank through a service provider's platform, converting the funds into cryptocurrency and moving them through various crypto platforms. This attack bears high similarity to the flow of funds stolen from crypto exchange Binance last week.
The hack occurs as companies face heightened alert for cyber security breaches, with powerful AI models making it easier for criminals to penetrate defenses. Last week, a record 6.3 billion dollars was stolen from Binance. France has recently experienced cyber attacks on multiple fronts, including supermarkets and blood-storage facilities. At a conference on Thursday, French central bank governor Emmanuel Moulin stated that financial institutions should benefit from the promising use cases of AI while managing its potential downsides and massive investments required to fight cybercrime. Credit Mutuel Arkea, a midsized French banking group headquartered in Brittany with 5.6 million customers and 212 billion euros in assets, stated that the sums involved are in no way large enough to jeopardize its financial health. Approximately one quarter of its 2025 net profit of 450 million euros is at stake.
Bitquery reported that 21.6 million dollars worth of ethereum and 12.3 million dollars in the stablecoin DAI remain held in crypto wallets linked to the thieves. The rest of the stolen funds moved via crypto exchanges requiring no identity checks. Cyber security expert Gerome Billois of Wavestone called the hack of an international bank "really, really unusual" and a "huge event" for the financial industry, noting successful financial hacks of big banks are rare.
Source: Financial Times Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing