“Funded hacktivism” or cyber-terrorists, AmEx attackers have big bankroll

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/03/funded-hacktivism-or-cyber-terrorists-amex-attackers-have-big-bankroll/

By Sean Gallagher
Ars Technica
Mar 30 2013

On March 28, American Express' website went offline for at least two hours 
during a distributed denial of service attack. A group calling itself "the 
cyber-fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam" claimed responsibility for the attack, 
which began at about 3:00pm Eastern Time.

In a statement, an American Express spokesperson said, "Our site experienced a 
distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack for about two hours on Thursday 
afternoon...We experienced intermittent slowing on our website that would have 
disrupted customers' ability to access their account information. We had a plan 
in place to defend against a potential attack and have taken steps to minimize 
ongoing customer impact."

The American Express DDoS is part of a new wave of attacks started two weeks 
ago by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam group, which launched a larger campaign 
targeting US financial institutions that began last September. The group's 
alleged goal is to force the take-down of an offensive YouTube video—or extract 
an ongoing price from American banks as long as the video stays up, which could 
be indefinitely.

These attacks are also part of a larger trend of disruptive and destructive 
attacks on financial institutions by apparently politically-motivated groups, 
the most damaging of which was the attack on South Korean banks and other 
companies last week. It's a trend that has surprised some security analysts, 
considering that the financial industry has focused more on advanced persistent 
threat (APT) attacks and cyber-espionage in recent years.

[...]

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