Despite denying reports evidence has been found that since Sept. 19 Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Bancorp being hit by a series of cyber-attacks that caused Internet blackouts and delays in online banking. Customers of
- Bank of America
- JPMorgan Chase
- Citigroup
- U.S. Bank
- Wells Fargo
- PNC
could not get access to their accounts or pay bills online making many customers frustrated, upset and worried.
The outages stem from one of the biggest “denial of service” attacks (hitting a website with so much traffic so it gets overwhelmed shuts down or crashes). The group has been said to use “low orbit ion cannon” a software tool typically used by Anonymous, Luzsec and other hacktivist groups to direct a massive flood of traffic at a targeted site. There have also been reports of the use of a botnet. Truth be told I do not think anyone really knows how there doing the attack.
A group with Middle Eastern ties called Cyber Fighters attacked Wells Fargo and posted on Pastebin that U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group are next. The group said it had attacked the banks in retaliation for an anti-Islam video that mocks the Prophet Muhammad. This is not the group’s first attack they have been defacing web sites for a few weeks now.
The group pledged to continue to attack American credit and financial institutions daily, The New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and institutions in France, Israel and Britain, until the video is taken offline.