Cyberattacks victimizing largest banks, feds say

November 03, 2012

Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano says the nation's largest financial institutions "are actively under attack" by cybercriminals, and one expert says it is a trend contributing to the rising security costs of banks. Napolitano told attendees of a cybersecurity event hosted by The Washington Post that the attackers were stealing information and money, but refused during questioning to provide details. "I really don't want to go into that per se," she said, according to a report in The Hill. "Right now, financial institutions are actively under attack. We know that. I'm not giving you any classified information," Napolitano said. "I will say this has involved some of our nation's largest institutions. We've also had our stock exchanges attacked over the last [few] years, so we know ... there are vulnerabilities. We're working with them on that." Napolitano's comments followed about a month after a series of distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) disrupted online operations of a number of major banks, including PNC Bank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust Banks and Capital One Financial. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.csoonline.com/article/720584/Largest_banks_under_constant_cyberattack,_feds_say