adminCredit unions and banks around the world should be aware of possible cyber attacks in the coming days. Financial organizations are under threat from the hacker group, “Anonymous,” that struck the Greek central bank’s website earlier this week, says an article on CU Journal. The group warns the next 30 days will be grim for financial organizations, specifically mentioning several institutions it will target, including websites of the Federal Reserve and nine of its 12 regional banks; the World Bank; and the central banks of countries, including the United Kingdom, Albania, Aruba, Malta, Canada, France, Greece, Japan, and Italy.
“In the past, Anonymous has launched distributed denial of service attacks – heavy waves of malicious traffic that can slow a website or shut it down entirely,” the article explains. It goes on to say, “Anonymous began targeting banks with distributed denial of service attacks in 2010, in an initiative called Operation Payback. Visa, MasterCard and Bank of America were among the victims in that wave of cybercrime. MasterCard was targeted on and off for a year.”
The latest attacks by Anonymous appear to be retribution for what they perceive to be financial misconduct, such as high fees and interest rates, foreclosures, and bailouts. The Greek central bank’s site was down only for a brief time after the cyber strike.
