Chase Bank Glitch: Trend or Cyber Warfare
Think of it like a Cyber Tide Pod Challenge
The “Chase Bank Infinite Money Glitch” is a trend on TikTok where a person can deposit a check through a Chase Bank ATM and then withdraw those funds before the check clears.
This apparently was a real software bug although it is unclear how many people tried to take advantage of this bug before it was patched.
The real question is this: was this an attempt by a foreign actor to destabilize the US banking system through a homegrown cyber attack and enlist US Citizens?
I don’t think so. Cyabra software indicates that only 19 accounts participating in this trend out of 3454 are inauthentic. If this were a genuine attack, more inauthentic accounts would be engaged.
This may be more of a cyber version of the “Tide Pod Challenge” where people supposedly ate laundry detergent for likes on social media.
Still, this could be a way for a country to wage a cyber attack on the US banking system with plausible deniability in the future.
This isn’t new. It’s “check kiting”. Apparently, a software glitch made this easy to do with just your own bank account but it’s straightforward to stop.
FWIW: I’ve worked in the bkg/finsvcs/fintech industry for +30 yrs, focused on the data supply chain of financial flows and the complex regulatory and compliance frameworks employed to both establish and maintain global continuity and stability in same.
In particular, I worked for JPMC, from 2000 to 2012, in their internal mgmt consulting org (part of enterprise-wide Corp Global program office, in the Global Tech&Ops LOB) and specifically, I worked across the Treasury and Securities Services and Retail LoBs, related to the development of various financial deposit and payment systems/services, and new/existing govt central bank policies, protocols and R&C frameworks.
My work was focused on global payments, across the USofA, UK, EU, Nordics, Soviet Baltic republics, China and the Middle East. Our various teams worked to develop and manage most of the world’s standardized payment and funds-flow frameworks.
Just for the USofA, there are significant process and technology safeguards in place to prevent payment manipulations such as described in this episode.
For example: I can go to my local JPMorgan Chase ATM and deposit a $10,000 check from my wife’s account (or have her use any of a number of funds transfer apps) but in this example, using the in-ATM image-OCR scanner functionality that turns said image of the paper checks (aka”draft”) acct routing and transit #s into an ACH transaction, which, depending upon the paying institution and any clearinghouse related protocols, the funds maybe be partially available immediately for the depositor (me) to access (say immediate availability of 25%?), or they maybe be entirely delayed per Regulation CC, the Federal Reserve’s “Availability of Funds and Collection of Checks/Payment Deposits) and its subsequent revisions thereof.
Likewise, when using a C2C, C2B or B2B payment application like “quick pay”, venmo, etc, the paying (payor) institution (aka your bank) may/may not have a direct FedReserve clearing relationship w/ your payee, thus requiring that they (your bank) actually send the payee a paper check, thus introducing a likely 5 biz working day delay between when you actually used your bill-pay app to make the payment and when said payment is actually presented to your payee…
My point in all of this procedure and process recap, is that even way back in the early 2000-2012s, there was significant and substantial regulatory controls in place to identify and prevent fraud and malicious intents as described herein… just sayin