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The regional bank is the ninth company to be hit with distributed denial of service attacks allegedly perpetrated by group affiliated with Iran.
October 18 -
U.S. intelligence officials have alleged that Iran's government is behind the recent wave of distributed denial of service attacks against American banks. Iranian officials, however, deny the claim.
October 15 -
Experts share the real threat behind the cyberattacks against Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others, and what banks can do to protect themselves.
September 27 -
Both PNC and U.S. Bancorp said Wednesday that customers encountered delays when trying to bank online, bringing to at least five the number of banks that have experienced Internet slowdowns since a cyber-threat against American banks emerged last week.
September 26 -
A financial industry group is warning members to be on the lookout for digital threats amid slowdowns at the websites of two of the nation's biggest banks.
September 20
Hacktivists bent on disrupting service at the world's biggest banks have hit another target, while a second group is claiming responsibility for the attack.
HSBC (HBC) said Thursday that hackers had flooded the lines that connect the bank's websites to the Internet to prevent customers from retrieving their accounts.
"On 18 October 2012 HSBC servers came under a denial of service attack which affected a number of HSBC websites around the world," the $2.7 trillion-asset company wrote in a
The disruptions later subsided and HSBC's site began to function normally, the company said in a statement early Friday.
Ally Financial, the former lending arm of General Motors, confirmed Friday it also has witnessed some unusual activity on its websites that it continues to monitor, though the company said the activity had not disrupted customers' ability to bank online. "We have not experienced the type of disruption or 'attack' that has been associated with the denial of service attacks," spokeswoman Gina Proia told American Banker.
At least two groups claimed responsibility for the cyberattack on HSBC.
"Several hours ago, we effectively directed numerous distributed denial of service attacks against HSBC bank corporation," a hacker collective known as Anonymous said in a message
"We are currently holding back on the exact reasons behind the attack, as we would prefer to take this time to warn greedy banks, law enforcement, worldwide governments and corrupt corporations that this is far from over, as we have only started," the group added.
Anonymous also claimed responsibility for the attack in a message posted both on
In September 2011, hackers reported to be an offshoot of Anonymous gained access to a Twitter account belonging to NBC News and sent out a series of messages that a plane had crashed at Ground Zero in New York City. Roughly two months earlier the digital pranksters hacked into a Twitter feed belonging to Fox News to report falsely that President Obama had been assassinated.
The group that has claimed responsibility for nine other cyberattacks on banks also asserted responsibility for the assault on HSBC. "In the last attack of operation Ababil, the 5th week, Izz ad-Din Al Qassam Group succeeded in making HSBC Bank website out of reach," read a message posted Thursday on Hilf-Ol-Fozul, a
The Al Qassam Group has posted a series of
The assault on HSBC brings to at least ten the number of banks struck worldwide since Bank of America (BAC) experienced a similar attack in September.
On Wednesday, BB&T (BBT)
At least some CEOs whose banks have been attacked are speaking out about the experience. Hackers "just pummeled us," Jim Rohr, chief executive of PNC Financial (PNC), which endured a digital assault in September,
"We were just barraged, through every website, through every portal we have with requests" by the attackers, added Rohr, who said he worries about a cyberattack that disrupts the banking industry or power grid.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), which saw its websites slow in September after a hit by hacktivists, says cybercrime is likely to get worse. "Computers in ten years are going to be 100,000 times faster, and so they'll be able to do calculations quicker, and get through quicker, and we'll have to meet that in every way, shape or form," Dimon
Cyberattacks on banks and other firms may foreshadow destructive digital assaults on the nation's critical infrastructure to come, according to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. "While this kind of tactic isn't new,