Hackers vs. banks battle heats up as Anonymous launches global attack
Greece's central bank says its website suffered a denial-of service attack as Anonymous announces the start of a 30-day campaign targeting major financial institutions
Anonymous has launched a 30-day attack against "all central banks" and major financial institutions, the activist-hacking group warned this week, after recent strikes on several major banks around the world by different hackers.
Anonymous claimed responsibility for a cyberattack on the National Bank of Greece on Tuesday, just a week after Qatar National Bank suffered a major data breach attributed by the media to a Turkish group called Bozkurt Hackers.
In March, the Bangladesh Central Bank reported US$100 million stolen from its account at the Federal Bank of New York after a weekend break, according to media reports. The Bangladesh Central Bank said hackers had transferred the money to bank accounts in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
An unnamed official from Greece's central bank said on Wednesday that the bank's website had suffered a denial-of service attack on Tuesday. This came after Anonymous announced the start of a "30-day campaign against central banks around the world," in a YouTube video.
"Operation Icarus has moved into the next stage, for today, we have continually taken down the website of the Bank of Greece. This marks the start of a 30-day campaign against central banks around the world," the group, which adopts the so-called Guy Fawkes mask as its symbol for hacking, said on Tuesday.
In a later video, Anonymous extended its intended targets to include "MasterCard and Visa , Bank for International Settlements, all central banks, the IMF and the London Stock Exchange and every major banking system."
"Our message is clear. We will not let the banks win. We will be attacking the banks with one of the most massive attacks ever seen in the history of Anonymous," the group said.