Anonymous promises cyberattacks

Anonymous to US: 'We Will Wipe You Off the Cyber Map'

Anonymous claims it will launch cyberattacks against banking and government websites on Tuesday.

CNBC,

6 May, 2013

The group is calling the planned attacks OperationUSA or OpUSA and said in a message on pastebin.com that the they are in response to social and political injustices.

"Anonymous will make sure that's this May 7 will be a day to remember. On that day anonymous will start phase one of operation USA. America you have committed multiple war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and recently you have committed war crimes in your own country," the hackers said last month in a statement. "We will now wipe you off the cybermap. Do not take this as a warning.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a confidential warning last week that the group of mostly Middle East- and North African-based criminal hackers were preparing to launch the cyberattacks Tuesday but said in the statement that the disruption could be limited, according to a report on the security blog Krebs on Security.

OpUSA follows a recent campaign called OpIsrael—which also claimed to wipe Israel off the cybermap last month but had little impact. And while it's likely the extent of damage on Tuesday will also be limited and primarily consist of website defacement, it's still a sign that the U.S. doesn't have an answer to dealing with hackers from other countries such as Iran, said Dave Aitel, CEO of the security firm Immunity.

"There is definitely going to be level some level of real danger hidden among all the noise and nonsense," Aitel said. "There is no law enforcement that can take place really that can tackle hackers that are coming out of Iran. We are going to have to come up with policy of what we are going to do when this activity over the Internet cannot be reached."

Some of the government agencies Anonymous listed to attack include the FBI, Nato and the National Security Agency. It also listed some big banks websites as targets including Bank of America, Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Capital One.

"As much as the financial community has invested in security, and they have invested a lot of money, they don't need another round of DDos attacks...It doesn't take a whole lot of success to cause them financial damage," Aitel said.

While many of the large institutions targeted have security in place that can thwart serious damage from cyber attacks, some of the smaller financial institutions listed on the group's hit list could be vulnerable to serious damage, Aitel said.

"Smaller banks listed like Bank of Oklahoma and some credit unions may not have the latest and greatest in security so they could have more problems," Aitel said