back to article Airbus, Boeing aero parts maker loses $54m in cyber-stick-up

An Austrian engineering firm is counting the cost of poor IT security after admitting €50m ($54m) has gone missing from its accounts following a "cyber fraud." FACC Operations makes airplane parts for giants like Airbus and Boeing, and is majority owned by a Chinese holding company. It insists its intellectual property, …

  1. Rol

    Lost millions

    Have you looked in the last place you left it?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Go

      Re: Lost millions

      I'm checking under the cushions of their corporate lobby couch!

      (More seriously--find the real decision makers who decided their corporate IT security posture, and fire them.)

  2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    If I'm reading this right (and I like to think that I do) it was an inside job, aka embezzlement. Does this count as a hack?

    BTW, film tip: "Hot Millions" by Eric Till, starring Peter Ustinov & Maggie Smith

    1. a_yank_lurker

      Not really a hack, the embezzlers (more than one person is likely) had access to the system and knew how to defeat the internal financial controls.

      The suckers most have some very lax financial controls based on the amount taken.

    2. Charles Manning

      Inside job != inside job

      There are inside jobs and inside jobs.... they are not the same and require different levels of authorisation and different levels of "hacking" to make it happen.

      Nicking the petty cash out of the secretaries top drawer is vastly different to falsified accounts which is again different to directly manipulating bank transfers.

      Your average engineer in most organisations can have responsibility for the design of a multi-million dollar project but can't authorise the purchase of a 50c pencil.

  3. Cardinal
    Holmes

    In 1963, The Great Train Robbers nicked 2.6 million quid and got 30 years for their efforts

    Now a single tea-leaf can grab the same amount (allowing for inflation) whilst sitting in front of the TV with a laptop. (and probably won't get caught).

    Ah, the good old days, when crooks had to sweat for their loot!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      As it was an inside job...

      They'd certainly get caught linking their laptop up to a TV, banned for "playing games on work equipment" and told to get the IT department to link up and Powerpoint slideshows for them.

      Then while being walked out, asked "can you did give your password back to the IT debt so they can get those business docs out of your work PC?"

  4. Mondo the Magnificent
    Mushroom

    No surpirse...

    In fact, a majority of data breaches are still committed from "inside" organisations..

    You can invest in all the data security you want, but if a company doesn't vet its employees properly, it can cost them.. we often read about this in the news when it's £10K here and £50K there, but when it's $50M, then it draws massive attention,,,

    1. DaLo

      Re: No surpirse...

      You can't vet an employee for something they haven't done yet.

  5. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    Financial accounts targetted?

    More likely some eejit had a bug in a spreadsheet macro and the cash never existed anywhere outside their reported figures in the first place.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Will they blame it on the cleaning staff?

    Here's looking at you G.U.S.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Now that's a big...

    ...FACC up.

  8. jonnycando
    Facepalm

    Hmmmm

    I wonder if the realization that REAL security is not an afterthought is ever going to take hold?

    1. Mark 85

      Re: Hmmmm

      Surely, you're not serious? If you are, you'll never become senior management.

      1. Stuart Elliott
        Trollface

        Re: Hmmmm

        He is, and don't call him Shirley.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Inside-out non-hacking cyber fraud ..

    "persons unknown managing to get around the electronic payment systems protection systems"

    They managed to redirect the gmail notifications to another account.

    "the firm's financial servers are being pored over byte by byte to find the culprits."

    We haven't a clue how they got in ..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Inside-out non-hacking cyber fraud ..

      "the firm's financial servers are being pored over byte by byte to find the culprits."

      "We haven't a clue how they got in .."

      Said a company spokesperson before leaving in the last Bugatti Veyron off the production line.

  10. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

    Did they retrench a couple of their permanent IT employees and outsourced their IT operations recently?

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