Anonymous Attacks Greek Central Bank In ‘Operation To End All Others’

As part of a month-long series of attacks, the hacktivist group Anonymous hit the Greek central bank on Tuesday, taking down its website. The group promises more is on the way, describing its campaign as the operation to end all others.

According to Reuters, a Greek bank official announced on Wednesday that they were the victim of Anonymous’ distributed denial-of-service attack.

“The attack lasted for a few minutes and was successfully tackled by the bank’s security systems. The only thing that was affected by the denial-of-service attack was our web site.”

CNN Money reports that the group did not steal or destroy any documents. Likewise, the central bank doesn’t cater to individual clients, and so there was no money lost.

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks are a common tool for Anonymous. It involves flooding websites with traffic, which stops them from functioning correctly. It didn’t have much effect on the Greek central bank, but in 2012, a massive DDoS attack prevented banking customers from reaching their accounts for weeks.

Sometimes they can also be used as a distraction technique to occupy cyber-security personnel while more intrusive hacks are underway.

Anonymous’ latest hit is part of what it calls “OpIcarus Phase 2,” which will last for 30 days and target the world’s central banking system. The first Icarus aimed at taking out the New York Stock Exchange in 2011, but it fell short.

They sent out a YouTube video to announce their plans.

“Olympus will fall. A few days ago we declared the revival of operation Icarus. Today we have continuously taken down the website of the Bank of Greece… This marks the start of a 30-day campaign against central bank sites across the world.”

The most recent attack doesn’t seem to match Anonymous’ rhetoric. CNN Money described it as “relatively weak and easy to foil,” more of a protest than anything else.

Still, the idea of further attacks looming in the near future is likely to put the banks on high alert.

Anonymous is one of the best known hacker organizations in the world, and they have launched numerous campaigns against everything from ISIS to Donald Trump.

As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Trump was supposed to be one of the most recent attacks, but was called off at the last second. Anonymous spokespeople sent out conflicting messages, some defending the campaign by arguing that Trump had “shocked the entire planet” with “appalling actions and ideas” and therefore needed to be stopped.

Others argued that he had a right to his own opinions in his campaign run. The in-fighting demonstrated one of the fundamental qualities of Anonymous — that there is no organized leadership. Instead, members rally together and organize operations, usually to defend freedom of expression, but anyone could potentially use the iconic Guy Fawkes mask to promote an agenda.

The operation against Trump ended with just a few pieces of information about the real estate mogul being released, including already-public items like his phone number and social security number.

In the next 30 days, the world will learn if Anonymous’ fight against the big banks will peter out in the same way.

“Today, we have continuously taken down the website of the bank of Greece. This marks the start of a 30-day campaign against central bank sites across the world.”

It’s not clear what bank or country Anonymous intends to hit next. The video explained that “this is the operation to end all others,” but it still remains to be seen if Anonymous is more bark than bite.

[Photo by Milos Bicanski/Getty Images]