WASHINGTON–The Federal Reserve detected more than 50 cyber breaches between 2011 and 2015, with several incidents described internally as "espionage.”
According to records reviewed by Reuters following a Freedom of Information Act request, the central bank's staff suspected hackers or spies in many of the incidents, the records show.
Reuters reported the Fed declined to comment, and the redacted records do not say who hacked the bank's systems or whether they accessed sensitive information or stole money.
According to the analysis, the records represent only a slice of all cyber attacks on the Fed, because they include only cases involving the Washington-based Board of Governors, a federal agency that is subject to public records laws. Reuters said it did not have access to reports by local cybersecurity teams at the central bank's 12 privately owned regional branches.
Hacking attempts were cited in 140 of the 310 reports provided by the Fed's board. In some reports, the incidents were not classified in any way, Reuters reported. It added that in eight information breaches between 2011 and 2013 – a time when the Fed's trading desk was buying massive amounts of bonds – Fed staff wrote that the cases involved "malicious code.”
Reuters said it found hacking incidents in 2012 were considered acts of "espionage," according to the records. Information was disclosed in at least two of those incidents, according to the records. In the other two incidents, the records did not indicate whether there was a breach.
In all, Reuters reported that the Fed's national team of cybersecurity experts, which operates mostly out of New Jersey, identified 51 cases of "information disclosure" involving the Fed's board. Separate reports showed a local team at the board registered four such incidents.
That national cybersecurity team – the National Incident Response Team, or NIRT – created 263 of the incident reports obtained by Reuters. The unit provides support to the local cybersecurity teams at the Fed's Board and regional banks, which process more than $3 trillion in payments every day.