Attack on JPMorgan ‘may spark collapse’

Hackers who stole gigabytes of data from JPMorgan could trigger the collapse of one of the United States’ largest banks, the country’s former chief spook has warned.

Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency from 2005 until last year, said the attack was probably a warning sign that financial institutions were “vulnerable”.

The data were stolen in mid-August and some fear the theft was backed by the Russian government in response to sanctions imposed by the US and European Union over the crisis in Ukraine.

“If you can reach in that far and steal the data, you can do anything you want,” he told Bloomberg. “You collapse one bank and our financial structure collapses.”

Alexander was head of the NSA in 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia, which was then linked to a series of cyber-attacks believed to be the work of Russian hackers.

JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon has warned shareholders that hackers’ attempts to breach its computers are growing more frequent, sophisticated and dangerous.