Bank of Valletta said this morning that following yesterday’s events, it resumed a number of its services during the night.
Bank of Valletta on Wednesday morning was compelled to shut down its operations after the bank's systems fell victim to a hacking attempt. Addressing Parliament Wednesday afternoon, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat explained that the hackers falsified various transactions which transferred a total of €13 million to four different countries in Euros, American Dollars, and Sterling.
The resumption of services follows rigorous overnight testing of the Bank’s IT systems which were successful, the bank said in a statement Thursday morning.
Customers may now once again make use of BOV services through the Bank’s branch network across Malta and Gozo, ATMs, Internet Banking, Mobile Banking and by making use of their BOV cards when effecting purchases. Payments to third parties is currently the only service not yet activated.
Developments in this regard will be communicated through future press releases, the bank added.
The bank again reassured its clients that customer deposits and customer accounts were in no way affected by this cyber-attack. This unfortunate incident proved that the contingency plans in place and the preventive measures taken by Bank of Valletta were appropriate and that these measures safeguarded the Bank, its customers and stakeholders.
The bank also thanked its customers, the general public and the media for their patience and support and once again apologises for the inconvenience that this incident may have caused them.
The Bank also thanked its staff and external security consultants who worked relentlessly during the night to identify and resolve the situation, to the authorities and all those who in any way supported the Bank during this incident.
The Bank reminds its customers to be wary of any requests for their personal or account details. Bank of Valletta will never ask for customer details through any channel such as social media, emails or telephone. Should there be any such requests, customers are to contact the Bank’s Customer Service Centre on +356 21312020.