French bank Credit Mutuel Arkea says €100 million missing after cyberattack

By Mathieu Rosemain and Elizabeth Howcroft

PARIS, Nov 5 (Reuters) - French bank Credit Mutuel Arkea said on Thursday it was missing about €100 million ($112.61 million) and could not yet say how much it will be able to recover after this week's cyberattack, a rare successful heist against a large financial institution.

Wednesday's attack on the French lender follows the theft last week of $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from the Binance exchange and a wave of cyberattacks targeting internet-connected fridges in Europe.

The attackers used an account belonging to Credit Mutuel Arkea to carry out "fraudulent transactions" to other banks, possibly allowing the funds to be converted into cryptocurrency through specialised platforms.

The hack did not involve customer accounts, however. And while the bank temporarily suspended some transactions as a precaution, resulting in delays to some transfers, customer assets were not affected, a spokesperson said on Thursday. 

The spokesperson also rejected media reports that its online banking subsidiary Fortuneo was the entry point for the attack, saying there had been no "entry" through Fortuneo and that neither the division nor its customers' accounts were involved.  

Credit Mutuel Arkea's spokesperson declined to identify the third-party service provider whose platform was used in the attack and said it had informed the European Central Bank, French banking supervisors and prosecutors.

The Paris prosecutor's office said its cybercrime unit received a complaint from Credit Mutuel Arkea on Wednesday and immediately opened an investigation into an organised attack on an automated data processing system.

While successful hacks of large financial institutions are rare, financial regulators globally have stepped up warnings about the risk of cyberattacks, particularly with the growth of AI.

Brittany-based Credit Mutuel Arkea is a French mutual banking group with more than 5.8 million customers and €211.5 billion in assets.

($1 = 0.8880 euros)

(Reporting by Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes and Joe Bavier)