Sri Lanka discloses another missing payment, days after hackers stole $2.5M from its finance ministry

Sri Lanka said on Tuesday that a payment of about $625,000 (about 199.7 million Sri Lankan rupees) to the U.S. Postal Service has been missing for several weeks, after U.S. officials reported that the payment had failed to arrive, reports local media.

Authorities detected the incident after hackers allegedly tried to divert another payment intended for India. 

Australian officials are reportedly aware of irregularities in payments owed to the country, suggesting that the Sri Lankan thefts could be broader than first thought.

The disclosure comes days after Sri Lankan officials said they were probing the theft of $2.5 million by a hacker who had targeted the country’s finance ministry.

Treasury Secretary Harshana Suriyapperuma told reporters at a press conference last week that the hackers diverted the payment from the country’s postal authority “to other bank accounts, instead of the intended recipient.”

These incidents seem to be business email compromise attacks, in which hackers break into email inboxes or other accounting systems to manipulate bank accounts and routing numbers during the process of paying an invoice.

Business email compromise scams are popular with cybercriminals, and recent FBI data has shown such attacks remain one of the top sources of cybercriminal profits, as hackers can steal vast sums of money via a single breach. The FBI says email compromise attacks resulted in billions in dollars of losses last year alone.

News of the successive security lapses has put new pressure on the Sri Lankan government after years of financial difficulties. The country is still recovering an economic crisis that led to it defaulting on its debt in 2022, and resulted in months of protests that culminated in the ouster of then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

It’s currently unclear if the two thefts are linked. Member of Parliament Nalinda Jayatissa said the government is investigating whether the incidents are connected.