U.S. and Israeli government agencies and banking institutions should be on alert for a potential Sept. 11 wave of distributed-denial-of-service attacks launched by the same groups behind the unsuccessful Operation USA and Operation Israel attacks in May. That warning comes from cybersecurity experts and alerts issued by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center. While OpUSA and OpIsrael, which were designed to take down websites operated by globally recognized brands and governmental agencies, were not successful, cybersecurity experts say the threat this time is genuine. The groups behind these attacks are now more organized, better equipped and trained, and more determined than they were the first time around, they say. The FBI, however, notes that the attacks are not expected to have a serious or significant impact. “It is thought that due to the fact that hackers will be relying on commercial tools to exploit known vulnerabilities, and not developing custom tools or exploits, that the skill levels are, at best rudimentary, and capable of causing only temporary disruptions of any of the targeted organizations,” the FBI alert states. Attack Alerts On Aug. 5, the FS-ISAC issued a warning to its membership about a new wave of DDoS attacks that could target U.S. banks. David Floreen, senior vice president of the Massachusetts Bankers Association , says the FBI, which issued a separate alert on Aug. 30, and the FS-ISAC asked banking associations to spread the word about the possibility of attacks. “The attacks are expected to occur in two phases,” notes the FBI alert. “Phase I will take place over a period of 10 days and target several commercial and government sites with DDoS attacks. … “Phase II is scheduled to take place on September 11, with a more widespread attack threatened, along with Web defacements.” The FBI recommends organizations: Implement data backup and recovery plans; Outline DDoS mitigation strategies; Scan and monitor e-mail attachments for malicious links or code; and Mirror and maintain images of critical systems files The FBI did not release its alert to the public, an FBI spokeswoman acknowledges. But in an effort to get the word out, the Massachusetts Bankers Association posted the FBI and FS-ISAC warnings on its site, Floreen says. The FS-ISAC alert names top-tier banks that are likely to be targeted during an upcoming attack. The list of potential attack targets includes the same 133 U.S. banking institutions named in the April 24 Anonymous post that appeared on Pastebin during the first OpUSA campaign, says financial fraud expert Al Pascual, an analyst with consultancy Javelin Strategy & Research. The FS-ISAC alert does not reference OpIsrael, but experts say OpUSA and OpIsrael are connected. Planning Attacks Gary Warner, a cyberthreat researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who also works for the anti- phishing and anti- malware firm Malcovery, claims the hacktivist groups’ main focus, for now, is Israel. If attacks against Israeli targets are successful, then U.S. targets will be next, he warns. Since June, two hacktivist groups, AnonGhost and Mauritanian Attacker, have been building plans for OpIsrael Reborn, according to Warner’s research. So far, these groups have not been linked to new attacks planned for a sequel to OpUSA, Warner says. Both groups, however, were involved in OpIsrael and OpUSA, he notes. “As part of our process of watching the phishers who create counterfeit bank websites, we track where many of those criminals hang out and what sorts of things they are discussing,” he says. “We became aware of OpIsrael Reborn while reviewing posts made by criminals who have been phishing U.S. banks and Internet companies.” Announcements for the new campaign began Sept. 2. But more posts were added on Facebook and in underground forums within the last week to recruit additional attackers, he says. “AnonGhost and Mauritanian Attacker have taken the time to build a strong coalition of hackers,” Warner says. “In that June release, there were no dates, no members and no targets announced.” Since that time, attackers have honed their targets, and they claim to have already compromised several government and banking sites in Israel, he says. On Sept. 11, they plan to publish information they’ve compromised from during those attacks, Warner adds. “They claim [on YouTube ] they are going to begin publishing the internal government documents of Israel,” he says. “The video also makes reference to the recent FBI claim that they have dismantled Anonymous.” Attackers are uniting this time out of anger over those claims made by the FBI as well as recent attacks waged against Islamic businesses believed to be backed by an Israeli hacktivist group, Warner explains. So why is this wave of attacks being taken more seriously than the first OpIsrael? The sheer number of attackers, their tools and the way the hacktivist groups have been building momentum through social networking sites such as Facebook has raised serious concern, Warner says. “They’ve been gathering tools since June 9, and training attackers on how do SQL and DDoS attacks,” he says. “It’s a SANS-quality training for hackers, and they’re prepping for wiping Israel off the [online] map.” On Sept. 9, two Israeli government websites were successfully taken offline for a period of time, Warner adds. “We did not see that success in OpIsrael or OpUSA,” he says. “If they pull this thing off against Israel, they will keep hitting others,” he says. No Attack Link to Al-Qassam Experts, including Warner, say Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters , the self-proclaimed hacktivist group that’s been targeting U.S. banks since September 2012, does not appear to be involved in these most recent campaigns. And although U.S. banking institutions have built up strong online defenses over the last year to mitigate cyber-threats such as DDoS attacks, other sectors are far less prepared, Javelin’s Pascual says. “The lack of success that Izz ad-Din al-Qassam achieved during the fourth round of DDoS attacks was indicative of how well fortified U.S. banks have become,” Pascual says. But Rodney Joffe , senior technologist at DDoS-mitigation provider Neustar, says security professionals should be concerned that other attackers have learned lessons from al-Qassam’s strikes. “I don’t believe there is any connection between OpUSA and AQCF [al-Qassam Cyber Fighters],” he says. “However, the reason I think it is more worrying this time is because, as I have said over and over, the underground learned a lot of groundbreaking lessons from AQCF. … And this time around, they may be more successful.” Source: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/911-ddos-alert-for-banks-agencies-a-6054

See the article here:
9/11 DDoS Alert for Banks, Agencies