"High" threat alert issued in midst of bank site incidents

In the wake of issues affecting Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase's websites, the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) raised the financial industry's cyber threat level to “high.”

The threat level moved from “elevated” to “high” on Wednesday, the same day news broke that Chase's website was down intermittently – and only a day after Bank of America customers experienced problems accessing its site.

On the FS-ISAC website, the organization said the high threat level was related to “recent credible intelligence regarding the potential for DDoS and other cyber attacks against financial institutions.”

A hacktivist group called “Cyber fighters of Izz ad-din Al qassam” claimed responsibility for attacks on “properties of American-Zionist capitalists” launched Tuesday, specifically mentioning Bank of America and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as targets.

“This attack will continue till the erasing of that nasty movie,” warned the message posted on Pastebin. On Wednesday, the group posted another message, taking credit for site issues affecting Chase.

The movie the group made reference to is believed to be the anti-Muslim film “Innocence of Muslims,” which has incited protests among Muslims around the world.

The hacktivists' claim on NYSE attacks has yet to be confirmed by the stock exchange.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) issued its own alert on fraudulent activity in the financial industry on Monday.

Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were listed among cases reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which partnered with the National White Collar Crime Center to establish IC3.