This week, a petition was filed on the White House’s “We the People” website that aims to legitimize the use of distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) as a legitimate form of protest. “It is the equivalent of repeatedly hitting the refresh button on a webpage. It is, in that way, no different than any ‘occupy,’ protest,” the petition states. “Instead of a group…
During the last third of 2012, 10 major U.S. banks were the targets of powerful distributed-denial-of-service attacks apparently launched by a foreign hacktivist group. Some observers predict there will be many more DDoS attacks against financial institutions in 2013. They say hacktivists, organized crime rings and even nation states will be the perpetrators, working collaboratively in some cases and independently…
Hacktivists’ phase 2 distributed-denial-of-service attacks against U.S. banks appeared to subside Dec. 19. Only Wells Fargo reported online access issues, but the bank pointed out that outages were limited. A day earlier, the bank reported a more extensive DDoS hit. The hacktivist group Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters Group on Dec. 18 posted an update on Pastebin, saying targeted banks…
The day after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters announced plans to launch a second wave of distributed-denial-of-service attacks on five U.S. banks, SunTrust suffered intermittent outages and Bank of America and PNC said small numbers of their customers reported having trouble accessing their sites. But it remained unclear whether the problems were the result of an attack. U.S. Bank, which…
A British student has been convicted over his role in a series of denial of service attacks against PayPal, which cost the payment firm £3.5m. Christopher Weatherhead was part of an Anonymous gang that attacked PayPal in protest at the firm’s decision not to handle payments being made to whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, in an attack dubbed ‘Operation Payback’. According to…
The hacktivists are now letting their words speak for their actions. For the third time in one month, a source claiming to be part of the self-proclaimed hacktivist group known as Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has granted an interview to discuss the wave of high-profile distributed denial of service attacks on U.S. banks. During the recent interview with Flashpoint…
Here is a great post from Joey Muniz at www.thesecurityblogger.com Press around the DDoS attack Operation Ababil has caught the attention of many of our customers. This sophisticated cyber strike used a combination of three separate rootkits targeting webservers, which produced a very high upstream attack method on multiple companies simultaneously. The scary part about Operation Ababil was it was designed…
A string of cyber attacks on U.S. financial institutions has created headaches this fall by slowing down or preventing online banking access for millions of Americans. But imagine the real economic damage that similar-style attacks would cause if they struck U.S. retailers this holiday-shopping season, potentially eating into projected online sales of $54 billion. While retailers deserve credit for bolstering…
Capital One and SunTrust came under attack this week using denial-of-service techniques that are evading defenses meant to blunt such attacks. Capitol One and SunTrust Banks have become the latest targets of hackers who have leveled attacks at U.S. financial institutions in alleged retaliation for the posting of a movie on YouTube that has offended some Muslims. On Oct. 8,…
Just as one type of attack against U.S. banks has subsided, the banks are being warned to get ready for another, called “Project Blitzkrieg,” aimed at online theft. Iran denies launching cyberattacks on U.S. banks The distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that briefly disrupted the online services of a half-dozen major financial institutions late last month — Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, PNC…
