{"id":155883,"date":"2026-04-25T15:23:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T22:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=155883"},"modified":"2026-04-25T15:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T22:23:13","slug":"imf-monitors-2-5-million-cyber-theft-at-finance-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/04\/25\/imf-monitors-2-5-million-cyber-theft-at-finance-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"IMF monitors $2.5 million cyber theft at Finance Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy Hiru News<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>The International Monetary Fund closely monitors the situation in Sri Lanka following a cybersecurity breach at the Finance Ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Officials confirm that cybercriminals gained unauthorized access to the External Resources Department (ERD) computer systems, resulting in the theft of US$ 2.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These funds were intended for debt repayment to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An IMF spokesperson informed Hiru that the organization is aware of the Finance Ministry&#8217;s statement regarding the unauthorized access and considers this a significant development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga Weeraratne stated that an international firm volunteered to assist in tracing the destination of the stolen funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meanwhile, Chairman of the Committee on Public Finance, Dr. Harsha de Silva, officially summoned the Secretary to the Ministry of Finance to appear before the committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lead Information Security Engineer of the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team, Charuka Damunupola, noted that forensic analysis of the affected system continues and technical precautions were recommended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>International media highlighted the incident, which reports suggest is the first cyber breach of its kind in the nation&#8217;s history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy Hiru News The International Monetary Fund closely monitors the situation in Sri Lanka following a cybersecurity breach at the Finance Ministry. Officials confirm that cybercriminals gained unauthorized access to the External Resources Department (ERD) computer systems, resulting in the theft of US$ 2.5 million. These funds were intended for debt repayment to Australia. An [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,166],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption-and-bribery","category-crimes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155884,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155883\/revisions\/155884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}