Slashdot Mirror
Cyber-Terrorists Attacking U.S. Banks Are Well-Funded
An anonymous reader writes "A DDoS attack targeting American Express on March 28th was just one in a series of incidents by self-proclaimed 'cyber-fighters' over the past few weeks. Beyond that, it's part of a much longer campaign to disrupt financial infrastructure using attacks over the internet. Ars details the group behind the most recent attacks, called 'the cyber-fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.' From the article: 'Named after a Muslim cleric who led The Black Hand, an anti-British and anti-Zionist jihadist organization in the 1920s and 1930s, and sharing a name with the military wing of Hamas (which the group's statements claim it is tied to), Izz ad-Din al-Qassam has taken credit for a variety of attacks on U.S. financial institutions over the past year, all allegedly in protest against the posting of trailers for the film The Innocence of Muslims on YouTube. Until the film is removed, the group said it would target "properties of American-Zionist CapitalistsThis attack will continue till the Erasing of that nasty movie." [sic]' There are concerns that the group is providing cover for organizations looking to defraud those banks. 'But even if the group behind the attacks isn't profiting from them, [Arbor Networks' Dan Holden] said it's clear that there are very real investments being made in their activities—maybe not in servers or hard assets, but in the form of countless hours of maintenance of the botnet by finding new servers to exploit, and further development of attacks. "Regardless of who's behind this," Holden said, "it has to be funded at some level. Even if it's hacktivists, it's got to be funded hacktivism." That, he says, is because of both the amount of time dedicated to the attack, and to its ongoing refinement. "It's not that these are the most sophisticated things in the world," he explained, "but it has been getting more sophisticated, and it's growing."'"
No, Seriously: Fuck that noise.
It's either cyber-criminal or hacktivist. There is no such thing as a cyber-terrorist. Normal terrorists can even use the interwebs to cause loss of life, but if it causes loss of life it is just terrorism by any other means.
As someone who believes terrorism should be treated as a serious subject matter, I find these petty attempts to cash in on the DHS cash-cow absolutely disgusting. Anti-terrorism is better funded than normal law enforcement so now every cop walking the beat wants to redefine their job title to include hunting parking-terrorists, and speeding-terrorists.
It's retarded, and it poses a threat to the 8th amendment.
Clearly these 'terrorists', however adequate their funding, are a bunch of amateurs.
As the recent history of the US(and more recently EU) banking sectors has demonstrated, the best way to disrupt financial infrastructure is to operate it. Plus, politicians will fight like dogs to see who can bail you out more generously, and you'll walk away with a fat bonus and no legal consequences!
Pull the other one. It's got BELLS on it.
This is a pure propaganda allegation. Unsourced, with out validation. Hamas? Gimme a break.
Wait for the shoe to drop, with additional restrictive and obtrusive laws on Internet users.
Even the "underwear bomber" has now been positively outed as a US "intelligence" operation. Not that anyone is noticing that little story.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Stop being level-headed. You're ruining the opportunity for rich people to declare war on something.
I hate printers.
Please never again use the word "cyber-terrorist" in any function. It is way too easy to turn that word into "anything someone does on the internet that you are scared of" and the internet is not always well understood by political classes and established interests. It is a word which too easily invites disastrous misinterpretation (e.g. Aaron Swartz-like situations).
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
In a fight between an Islamic fundamentalist group and the banks, who do I want to win?
Well, that's pretty easy. The Islamic fundementalists. After all, given the choice of illiterate goat herders with a two thousand year chip on their shoulders and the and the invertebrate slime who give Cthulhu the shakes, which way would you swing?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
It doesn't really work that way anyway. The banks are profiting from the conflict. They win no matter who loses.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Even the "underwear bomber" has now been positively outed as a US "intelligence" operation. Not that anyone is noticing that little story.
The article to which you linked is about a separate incident (in 2012) from the original underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was not a CIA spy and very much intended to cause harm (in 2009).
Terrorism is the act of inducing fear into a society, to the point that individuals don't feel safe anymore.
You can, online, destroy the trust of people into banks, stalling any transactions because of fear/uncertainty. Without the loss of life.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Why do these scare-mongering articles always seem to quote people who have a vested interest in hawking products and services designed to combat "cyberterrorists" for governments and corporations?
Which of course makes the most powerful terrorist organization in the world the US Government, which is happily facilitated by the media.
Whenever a bureaucracy has nothing worthwhile to say (i.e. always), they turn to hyperbole. There are no cyber-terrorists. At most, these people are vandals, and they are not well-funded either as these attacks are cheap, get you press, but don't do any damage if the target has a minimal level of preparedness.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
I liked planet better. The planes just waited until the earth rotated the buildings into them.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This attack will continue till the Erasing of that nasty movie.
...if they'd be so kind as to add the Star Wars prequels to their list.
WTF is a Cyber Terrorist?
It's the working title of our next Hollywood blockbuster, along the lines of Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. Propaganda at its very best. You just can't argue with success.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Terrorism is the act of inducing fear into a society, to the point that individuals don't feel safe anymore.
You can, online, destroy the trust of people into banks, stalling any transactions because of fear/uncertainty. Without the loss of life.
Bullshit. Terrorism specifically involves violent acts towards civilians or military groups not currently involved in a war. Normally killing them in visible and public ways such as bombings.
Cyber-terrorism can be perfectly reasonably defined; things like: taking over train control systems and inducing the trains to crash into each other; opening dam flood gates and killing people; reprogramming medical systems to kill patients etc. etc.
People losing trust in banks which get broken into is called "good commercial sense". People publicising such attacks should be seen as "public spirited" given that they could just take the money and run.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I think you are confusing the two underwear bombers. The second was an agent. He volunteered so the plot would be stopped and handed the bomb over. What was the CIA supposed to do? Out one of their agents? Now I don't trust the government and agree airport security is nuts, but that doesn't mean there aren't constant plots to kill Americans.
Bankers. Bankers wouldn't stone me to death for who I fuck.
But it wasn't a fake terror op. As I see it, an undercover agent foiled a plot by volunteering and then surrendering. Nobody was "caught" other than in the sense an undercover operative was recklessly outed by the NYT. This was not a "false flag" attack or anything of the sort. Had an intelligence operative not volunteered, there would have been an actual terror attack, as there was just two years prior in 2009 that very nearly resulted in loss of life. As a result of what the agent did, lives were saved and nobody was ever in danger, as Obama said (and if you've read any of my posts, you'll no i'm hardly an Obama fan, nor was I of his predecessor, bush. As much as I like transparency, when it endangers intelligence operatives, it's not a good thing. There are instances where secrecy is a necessary thing, and when it comes to interfering with plots against the United States, it's a necessary thing. I realize how sometimes the government has cried wolf so many times and lied about so many things that it's hard to take any of their claims seriously, but sometimes there actually is a wolf.