Background
In early September 2012, videos of about 14 minutes in length that claimed to be trailers of a longer film named “Innocence of Muslims” were uploaded to YouTube. The film, which is claimed to contain offending content to the Muslim community, invoked demonstrations and violent protests in many Muslim countries and an attack on U.S. consulates and embassies.
On September 18 2012, a group called “Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al Qassam“announced a cyberattack campaign and called for an attack on its ‘American and Zionist’ targets. The attack campaign was named “Operation Ababil” which was also the name of a failed Pakistani military operation that occurred in April, 1984. The goal of this ongoing attack campaign is to down U.S.-based financial institutions’ web sites and online services.
The week of July 22nd has started the fourth wave of DDoS attacks against U.S. banks and financial institutions. Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the group behind the previous three waves of OpAbabil attack against U.S. banks, has announced its fourth phase. This is the continuum of its fight against what it refers to as – "the widespread and organized offends to Islamic spirituals and holy issues, especially the great prophet of Islam and the offending film on the Internet.”
The targets of this attack remain leading U.S. banks including Bank of America, Chase Bank, PNC, Union Bank, BB&T, US Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Citibank and others. On their Pastebin post the group threatens to continue the attacks until the film “Innocence of Muslims” is completely removed from the Internet. Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam announced "the new phase will be a bit different and you'll feel this in the coming days.”
Radware’s Emergency Response Team (ERT) has witnessed high volume TCP and UDP flood attacks, DNS implication attacks and SSL based attacks. The group has published a formula to justify the fact the U.S. must pay in money for the insult.
Additional Information