US Banks’ Security Shift to High Gear After Cyber Attacks

After the Bank of America received a direct threat to its security last Thursday in retaliation for the anti-Muslim film released in YouTube, a security firm servicing the financial services industry raised threat levels to high. The threat slowed down the site of Bank of America and that of JP Morgan Chase although the latter denies the slowing down of its site was the result of a cyber attack. One other factor which influenced the security firm’s decision is the glitch that was discovered in Internet Explorer’s systems. The Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center raised its cyber threat level to ‘high’ in the face of these two incidents.

photo credit:  aytm.com

The threat of “denial of service” that is threatening financial institutions is a real threat coming from Muslim forces which needed a more intense reaction from the center. The zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser further pushed the center into raising alert levels. The New York Stock Exchange also received news of the threat hitting them as well.

The threat against the Bank of America and NYSE sites were posted on Tuesday while the threat on JP Morgan Chase’s website occurred on Thursday. The poster was identified with the “Cyber fighters of Izz ad-din Al Qassam.” The group released a statement saying that cyber threats and attacks will continue unless the maker of the anti-Muslim movie released by YouTube apologizes for the video.