Iran Behind Cyber-Attacks on U.S. Banks
According to NBC News, a U.S. National Security Official has confirmed that Iran has been behind a series of attacks against JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Bank of America, starting in January of 2011. The attacks have escalated over recent months, and the source quoted by NBC says the claim that the attacks are related to the recent anti-Islamic video are false.
Iran has improved it's cyber-attack capabilities since the Stuxnet worm damaged their nuclear program in 2010. The attacks have been mostly denial-of-service type attacks that make the banking Web sites unavailable to legitimate customers.
From NBC News:
The consumer banking website of Bank of America was unavailable to some customers on Tuesday, and JPMorgan Chase on Wednesday had the same problems, which multiple sources linked to a denial-of-service attack, in which a website is bogged down by a large number of requests. A Chase spokesman said Wednesday that the consumer site was intermittently unavailable to some customers, but did not acknowledge then that there was an attack. On Thursday, Chase said slowness continued but was resolved by late afternoon Eastern Time. Bank of America acknowledged on Tuesday that its site had experienced slowness, but would not say what caused it.
A hacking group has claimed responsibility for the attacks claiming they were motivated by the anti-Islamic video, but senior officials claim these attacks have been ongoing and include more than just banks:
The attacks on the three largest U.S. banks originated in Iran, but it is not clear if they were launched by the state, groups working on behalf of the government, or "patriotic" citizens, according to the sources, who requested anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The hackers also targeted other U.S. companies, the sources said, without giving specifics.
image: cbsnews.com
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