Capital One Financial Corp. said it's the latest target in a new round of coordinated cyber attacks aimed at disrupting the websites of major U.S. banks, and SunTrust Banks Inc. and Regions Financial Corp. said they expect to be next.
The so-called "Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters" posted a specific timetable for its attack program on PasteBin.com, a website commonly used by hackers to brag about exploits. Izz ad-Din al-Qassam also threatened to pursue more cyber attacks next week and has long said it will not stop until the video is removed from the Internet.
American banks will reportedly face a massive cyberattack in coming weeks. A Russian-speaking hacker is organizing a massive trojan attack based around fraudulent wire transfers--and American banks appear to be at the center of the raid.
In the past, such attacks have sometimes caused websites to slow to a crawl or become inaccessible for some users; however, the impact cannot be gauged in advance. The same group has taken credit for attacks on Bank of America , J.P. Morgan Chase and the NYSE Euronext in recent weeks.
Security professionals investigating the recent cyber attacks against the U.S. financial sector said last week that they discovered the tools at the heart of the attacks are more complex than previously thought and that a variant of the malware has been found in labs in Saudi Arabia. It's not clear whether this means the malware used against U.S. banks came from Saudi Arabia or just ended up there coincidentally.