Previously we mentioned hackers targeting a South African bank and it looks like this time, hackers went after a United Arab Emirates bank and Arab Bank. While no money was stolen in this case or user accounts compromised, they managed to completely shut down the websites.
No one knows the names of the people behind the attack except that it is the work of Israeli hackers who operate under the name ‘IDF Team’. The hacker group had mentioned the day before their plan to shut down the central bank website as well as the website of Arab Bank.
“Both sites were inaccessible on Thursday. UAE Central Bank officials brushed aside the significance of their site being compromised, saying talks with the European delegation, which included Mr Draghi and a number of ECB governors, were their top priority.”
“We have been busy here,” said Sultan bin Nasser al-Suwaidi, governor of the UAE Central Bank, when asked about the hack. “There are IT technicians who will take care of it.”
As to how they pulled off the attack and took both websites down, it became very clear.
“The sites are likely to have been hit by denial-of-service attacks, which use a network of computers to flood the system running a website with requests, causing it to break down. Often the computers used for such attacks have been infected by viruses that allow hackers to control the machines remotely, without the knowledge of their owner.”
Hackers and various groups have been taking down sites and causing disruption for years and doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.
What would you do if your website got taken down by hackers?
