Three groups threaten to hack European banking systems

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
17 Jun 2023 19:00
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The hacker groups confirm that they are preparing for a large-scale cyberattack against European banks within 48 hours.

SWIFT headquarters in Belgium (AFP)

Hacker groups Anonymous Sudan, REvil, and Killnet threatened to launch a cyberattack against European banks over the West’s supply of weapons to Ukraine, the groups mentioned in a joint video statement, RT reported.

Since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022, the European Union imposed on Russia unprecedented economic sanctions and isolated the country from the worldwide SWIFT money-transfer system.

A Killnet representative underlined in the video that "this is not a DDoS attack, the games are over. We call on all active groups to engage in destructive activity against the European banking system. No money – no weapons – no Kiev regime."

"Many European banks will be targeted, and we will hit without mercy," an Anonymous Sudan representative indicated.

Killnet leader, nicknamed Killmilk, revealed to Lenta.ru on Thursday that preparations for the cyberattack were ongoing and that the operation would be launched within 48 hours.

Apart from direct cyberattacks against banks, IT experts predict that hackers will target the SWIFT system, which underpins the vast bulk of international financial transactions. Nonetheless, they are skeptical that such an attack will be effective.

"It is difficult to say in advance how seriously we should take this. Anonymous Sudan and Killnet engage in DDoS attacks. Their attacks have been unsuccessful, or the impact was minimal. REvil ran ransomware and was not involved in 'hacktivism' before… Yet it is still worth being on the lookout for this," RTL Nieuws cited Daan Keuper, the lead researcher at Dutch cybersecurity company Computest, as saying.

NEWS.ru. also cited IT industry expert Yevgeny Gorbov as saying that the hacker groups' cyberattack is unlikely to succeed due to the layers of protection set by banking systems.

Gorbov explained that "to perform a cyberattack on the banking system in Europe, you must hack it first. Everything is controlled by several data centers and an attack on one of them will not solve anything. Even if they shut it down for a day or a week, the banking system won’t collapse and will continue to work."

"It is possible that a few banks will be attacked, but it is unlikely to lead to catastrophic consequences," he noted.

Several media reports mentioned that Killnet was reportedly responsible for the hacking of numerous NATO websites and the FBI database, as well as a Lufthansa IT outage.