Last night, NBC News reported that the Iranian government was backing cyberattacks against Bank of America and JP Morgan.
Today, Reuters’ Jim Finkle and Rick Rothacker went into greater detail on the attacks. According to Reuters, Iranian hackers have targeted BOA, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup for over a year. The cyberattacks are primarily DDOS attacks, and it is unclear “[w]hether the hackers have been able to inflict more serious damage on computer networks or steal critical data.” The article suggested that the DDOS attacks may be a diversion for “more destructive assaults that have yet to be uncovered.” Reuters split with NBC News on the source of the attacks, noting that it is still unclear whether this was the work of the Iranian government or patriotic hackers.
Chris Strohm also reported on the attacks for Bloomberg Businessweek. The article contained this quote from Sen. Lieberman:
I don’t believe that these were just hackers . . . I think that this was done by Iran and the Qods force, which has its own developing cyber attack capacity. And I believe it was a response to the increasingly strong economic sanctions that the United States and our European allies have put on Iranian financial institutions.
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While we’re on the subject, Peter Beaumont reported for The Guardian on the covert cyberwar being waged in the Middle East. Mostly a rehash of Flame, but the article connects the various bits of news to paint a picture of a very large and very sophisticated cyber campaign.
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