Banks Seeking Aid on Iranian Cyber Attacks

The banking majors in the US are pushing the government to aid them in smashing a long-term Iranian campaign of cyber attacks against American financial institutions, as reported in online.wsj.com on January 15, 2013.

Though a huge amount has been spent in warding off these cyberattacks, they did not obtain much success in this prospect as they believe government involvement.

Defense officials also pointed the Iranian Government to be the mastermind behind such cyber assault. According to the investigators, affected banks include PNC Financial Services Group Inc., and SunTrust Banks Inc., etc have urged the government to intrude in this mission and alleviate them.

According to Kiersten Todt Coon, President of Liberty Group Ventures LLC, a risk-management firm, the severity of this threat is quite imperative from the aid sought after by the banks, as published by online.wsj.com on January 15, 2013.

However, though it is believed by the US Intelligence that Iran is after such assault, the country denies it. Experts recommend that the solution lies in blocking down the attacks by taking down the botnet behind the mission seems to be a difficult job due to the complexity of the infrastructure involved.

According to David Hobbs, Director of Security Solutions at Radware, as botnets are infected all around the globe, they just cannot be blocked, as published on cso.com.au on January 17, 2013. Computers and servers throughout the world are randomly compromised daily and they often belong to legitimate companies.

Another option include in having the government work with ISPs to block malicious traffic from computers in Iran. However, Scott Hammack, Chief Executive of Prolexic Technologies, said that would be difficult, as traffic in the bank attacks are from compromised systems in Europe, the US and Asia, published cso.com.au on January 17, 2013. Some banks affected by the campaign are customers of Prolexic, which specializes in denial-of-service attacks. According to Scott Hammack, Chief Executive of Prolexic Technologies that seems to be a difficult option as bank attacks are appearing from compromised systems in Europe, the US, and Asia as reported in cso.com.au on January 17, 2013. A number of banks affected by the campaign include the customers of Prolexic that specializes in denial-of-service attacks.

Related article: Bank Issues Spam Alerts

» SPAMfighter News - 1/22/2013