Cyber terrorism and its aftereffects – Case of financial institutions
Description of the attack
Financial institutions in the U.S. have been reported to be under a series of attacks during 2007-2013. The JP Morgan Chase, American Express, and the Bank of America were hit with an attack, and hackers gained access to sensitive data of the customers. The incident came into the forefront when customers of American Express were trying to receive access to their individual online accounts. JP Morgan witnessed a similar case, and approximately 32,000 computers were hacked in South Korean banks (Nytimes.com, 2020). The New York Times reported the incidents in March 2013. It became clear that hackers targeted the reputed financial institutions. The attacks caused a loss of millions of dollars. The incident was aggressive, and it completely disabled the online banking operations and transactions. Cyber terrorism not only disrupts the operations of the bank, but it also destroyed the activities. The attacks on the mentioned institutions occurred within a period of six months, and it was anticipated that the incident was conducted by a terrorist group in Iran known as Izz ad-Din-al-Qassam.
Ways of preventing the attack
According to the members of the intelligence teams of respective Homeland and Security Department, it is plausible to hit the hackers straight. However, it might also increase the risk of further attacks. It is rather logical to protect the critical infrastructure of the companies and the promotion of information sharing. The North Korean or the U.S. government could have played a vital role in preventing the attacks by disabling the online weapons of the Iranian cyber-terrorist group. It would have been indispensable to use high-end anti-virus products for the computer systems (Cohen, 2014). The terrorist group engineered the malware so that it can have the most significant impact. The South Korean government even denied the harmful effects of such attacks, and it has exponentially created fear among the financial institutions.