QNB has said its systems are fully secure and operational after its risk team “monitored abnormal activity” in its system environment, which was “immediately communicated” to relevant authorities.
“We also took immediate steps and our systems are fully secure and operational. The attack only targeted a portion of Qatar-based customers,” QNB said yesterday.  
While some of the data recently released in the public domain “may be accurate”, much of it was constructed and contains a mixture of information from the attack as well as other non-QNB sources, such as personal data from social media channels.
“We believe the nature of this incident is fundamentally an attempted attack on QNB Group’s reputation and not specifically targeted at our customers,” QNB said.
“This incident will have no financial impact on QNB Group’s customers. We are taking every measure to protect the privacy of our customers and have engaged an external third party expert to review all our systems to ensure no vulnerabilities exist.
“All our customers’ accounts are secure, and as always, we encourage customers to be vigilant, taking the usual precautions of frequently changing their usernames and passwords through QNB Group Internet banking. Our call centre is also available 24/7 and concerned customers can speak to a representative if they have any inquiries regarding their accounts,” QNB said.
QNB also said it deeply regretted any inconvenience this might have caused to its customers.
“We at QNB Group place the highest priority on data security and deploy the strongest measures possible to ensure we maintain your trust and the integrity of your information,” QNB said.