Recruiters love to bend the reality of working in finance by telling you no two days are the same. But when you’re running around Manhattan delivering trade settlement details via a USB stick, you probably wish for a bit of monotony. Sadly for some, that was a reality this week.

The lowdown

• 🎈 Powell says the Fed is ‘not confident’ it has done enough to reduce inflation.

• 📉 China’s largest chipmaker SMIC posts an 80% drop in third-quarter profit.

• 🍎 Apple to pay $25 million to settle a DOJ hiring discrimination probe.

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World’s biggest bank trades via USB stick after hack

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has been hit by a ransomware attack that disrupted Treasuries trading. The US arm of the world’s biggest commercial lender by assets was unable to clear trades, forcing it to send settlement details to them across Manhattan on a USB stick ($).

In a ransomware attack, hackers disable an organization’s systems and demand payment to unlock them. They often also steal sensitive data for extortion. Experts said a criminal gang called Lockbit was believed to be behind the attack. It has ties to Russia and has also been linked to hits on Boeing, ION Trading, and the UK’s Royal Mail.

ICBC says it contained the incident by disconnecting affected systems and conducting a thorough investigation with the help of cybersecurity specialists. It comes after law firm Allen & Overy suffered a cyberattack ($), making it the latest big corporate to fall victim to a ransomware hack.

The content we're consuming today

• Insider: Group chats can ruin your life

• Washington Post: Inside an OnlyFans empire: Sex, influence and the new American Dream ($)

• FT: The ‘London laundromat’: will Britain wean itself off Russian money? ($)

Off-balance sheet items

• Here’s what the Hero’s Journey is and how you can use it to sell anything.

The bottom line