An alleged ransomware attack on the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has disrupted the U.S. Treasury Market.

ICBC, a state-owned commercial bank, is one of China’s largest banks.

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“We are aware of the cybersecurity issue and are in regular contact with key financial sector participants, in addition to federal regulators. We continue to monitor the situation,” a Treasury department spokesperson said, according to the Financial Times.

“Industrial & Commercial Bank of China told some of its brokerage clients to reroute their trades after a cybersecurity issue at its systems prevented it from clearing swathes of the transactions,” Bloomberg Asia noted.

From Reuters:

The U.S. Treasury Department is aware of a cybersecurity issue at Industrial and Commercial Bank of China that has affected the Treasury market, and is in regular contact with key financial sector participants and regulators, a spokesperson said on Thursday.

The Treasury issued the statement following a Financial Times report that a ransomware attack at ICBC had “disrupted” the US Treasury market by preventing the bank from settling Treasury trades on behalf of other market participants.

This is the latest suspicious cyber event to occur this week.

Reports surfaced that upwards of 10 million Australians woke up Wednesday morning to internet outages, dysfunctional train networks, and widespread communication issues.

AUSTRALIA: Millions Impacted By ‘Internet Blackout,’ Possibly Biggest Outage In Country’s History. Cyber Attack?

Optus, one of Australia’s largest telecommunications companies, experienced one of the biggest outages in the country’s history.

“Internet and calls of millions of Australians affected / down — authorities say they’re investigating possible cyberattack as trains and infrastructure disrupted in Australia,” Insider Paper reports.

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