HSBC Is the Latest Attack Victim

Tenth Bank Affected by DDoS in Recent Weeks
HSBC Is the Latest Attack Victim

HSBC Holdings, a British multinational bank with U.S. headquarters in Mettawa, Ill., on Oct. 18 became the 10th bank in recent weeks to suffer online outages as a result of a distributed denial of service attack.

See Also: Application Logging Challenges in Information Security

The $317.5 billion institution reported that its websites worldwide were knocked out of service as a result of the attack.

"The denial of service attack did not affect any customer data, but did prevent customers from using HSBC online services, including Internet banking," Neal McGarity, a company spokesman, told BankInfoSecurity the afternoon of Oct. 18. "We are taking appropriate action, working hard to restore service. We are pleased to say that some sites are now back up and running."

HSBC is cooperating with law enforcement authorities on an investigation and is working with other organizations that have been similarly affected by attacks, McGarity said.

Recent Attacks

HSBC apparently is the latest victim in a series of attacks by the hacktivist group Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters.

On Oct. 17, BBT Corp., a Winston-Salem, N.C.-based bank, acknowledged that its website suffered from intermittent outages related to a DDoS attack. And Capital One experienced its second DDoS attack on Oct. 16.

An Oct. 16 post on Pastebin claiming to be from Izz ad-Din al-Qassam said more attacks against U.S. banks would be waged between Oct. 16 and Oct. 18. Unlike its previous attack threat announcements, the group said it would not name in advance the banks to be targeted.

Izz ad-din Al Qassam said it would continue to target U.S. institutions until a YouTube movie trailer believed by the group to be anti-Islam is removed from the Internet. Experts, however, question whether that outrage is just a front for some more nefarious motive.


About the Author

Jeffrey Roman

Jeffrey Roman

News Writer, ISMG

Roman is the former News Writer for Information Security Media Group. Having worked for multiple publications at The College of New Jersey, including the College's newspaper "The Signal" and alumni magazine, Roman has experience in journalism, copy editing and communications.




Around the Network

Our website uses cookies. Cookies enable us to provide the best experience possible and help us understand how visitors use our website. By browsing bankinfosecurity.com, you agree to our use of cookies.