Switzerland's SWIFT data centre under guard after Russian banks excluded

A Swiss data centre operated by financial messaging service SWIFT is under guard by police following the exclusion of key Russian banks from the system. As we reported yesterday, the EU has agreed to bar certain Russian banks from SWIFT, the most widely used global financial messaging system. The move, a response to the …

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if they still use the same core fixed-size message buffer/field technology they did 20 years ago? Or did they switch to a web-style format, like JSON or XML?

[Anonymous Coward]

At this rate of geo-political development, they'll soon be switching to the tried and tested data exchange format of: CARRIERXXXPIGEONXXX

[Abominator]

ISO 15022

They took the tagged format and essentially shoved it in XML verbatim, with he XML as a wrapper.

Look ma! XML on the mainframe! Not quite. That got stripped away when it hit the big iron.

[pardo_bsso]

That is good news I presume?

I don't know why but I believed it as ASN.1

[MiguelC]

ISO 20022 is the modern model with bells and whistles

[teknopaul]

Bin to xml

I work for a company that did that (mapped a Binary protocol to very simple xml wrapper)

I was able to write functional and load test in nodejs and even able to write a mock for the mainframe that could run on a laptop.

Big iron did exactly what you describe, stripped the xml on input, converted a few data types like iso dates, and forwards the original Binary message to the original system.

Simple yes. Useful too.

[Steve Button]

They didn't already have guards?

And if they aren't armed guards, what you gonna do when someone comes knocking with a Kalashnikov anyway?

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

One assumes that private security was already in place and on site with a hotline to the cantonal police and that the change is to have actual police officers on site. Given that military service is mandatory in Switzerland, I would expect at least the officers assigned to this duty to be armed, possibly with tactical gear.

[Korev]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

I would expect at least the officers assigned to this duty to be armed

The Police here always carry a pistol.

[Ian Johnston]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

Not open the door?

[ShadowSystems]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

They have drunken naked Scotsmen armed with bagpipes & a penchance for attrociously bad disco music. They're INVINCEABLE! =-D

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

No they don't need guards - they normally rely on helpful customer service to anyone with an army

[iron]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

This is Switzerland, everyone is in the army and they all carry a knife!

[Korev]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

Only the men have to do military service - women can volunteer and oddly enough almost none do.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

They manwoman the deposit counters

[Stork]

Re: They didn't already have guards?

It is a data centre. It is in Switzerland.

So probably not, and if they have they’ll be very discreet

[Jamesit]

Switzerland takes SWIFT action to protect data centre.

[David 132]

Every data-packet trying to enter the building will be inspected, and if the header contains any backward Rs or ends with "-ski", it will be refused admission.

[Woza]

One also assumes they're filtering based on RFC 3514, aka the evil bit.

[bpfh]

I thought...

That this was the only way to filter our malicious traffic!

[Sgt_Oddball]

So you're saying...

They don't use Cheque bits?

Mines the camo jacket, I'll see myself out.

[eldakka]

The SWIFT messaging network is run from three data centres in Virginia, US; in Zoeterwoude in the Netherlands; and in Diessenhofen in the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland.

You couldn't drop me some map pins on those data centres for me could you?

Asking for a comrade friend.

[Danny 2]

@eldakka

"You couldn't drop me some map pins"

The US one is Culpeper.

The Dutch one faces a Heineken factory on stilts to save it from flooding. A bit worrying that the Heineken stilts are higher than the SWIFT centre.

The Belgian set-up is the most impressive, the buildings all look like marble clad national museums. With staff tennis courts and cordon bleu free lunches. No point phoning them from 11am to 2pm.

I didn't know about the Swiss one, when I was there they were looking for a safe far east place for better time-zone coverage. I guess the Swiss one is for the legal neutrality.

Operations can fully switch between centres in two minutes if one of them are nuked - that's disaster recovery when it's fully funded.

[Nafesy]

The point?

I wonder if those guards are trained to handle ICBMs....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The point?

Alwasy up for a laugh, but that bloody nutter sitting in his Moscow bunker is chucking rockets around nuke power stations to frighten people, only takes one bad day in the office for Mr P and next thing he's hitting the big red button and we're all sitting on a (mushroom) cloud playing harps!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The point?

well, look on the bright side, every cloud has a silver lining, etc: at least this would / will have solved our biggest challenge, that is, climate change - swiftly and definitely!

[Spamolot]

Re: The point?

Ah, yes the old "Nuclear Winter will solve all our climate issues" gambit. Quite popular on the 1980s cocktail circuit inside the Beltway...