Wells Fargo Hit by Cyber Attacks

Wells Fargo’s online banking services were recently disrupted by a series of denial of service attacks.

“Wells Fargo apologized on Twitter for the disruption, saying it was working to restore access,” writes Computerworld’s Jeremy Kirk. “By Wednesday morning, the site appeared to be functioning. A group calling itself the ‘Mrt. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters’ said it coordinated the attacks, and planned further ones on U.S. Bancorp on Wednesday and PNC Financial Services Group on Thursday, according to a post on Pastebin.”

“‘In the previous announcements we stated that we will not tolerate insulting exalted character of the prophet of mercy and kindness. Due to the insult, we planned and accomplished a series of cyber operations against the insulting country’s credit and financial centers,’ the hackers stated,” writes Softpedia’s Eduard Kovacs. “They highlight the fact that their actions are not part of state-sponsored attacks as many US officials say. They insist that the distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks they launch against US banks are a form of protest against the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ movie.”

“The poster said the attacks will continue until the film that had stirred up anti-U.S. protests across the Middle East was removed from the Internet,” writes Reuters’ Rick Rothacker.

“Past cyber-attacks for which this group claims responsibility struck Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase,” writes Betabeat’s Steve Huff. “While the problems for the larger banks were intermittent, the Wells Fargo attack seems to have been the most effective so far, indicating the group may be improving their methods.”