U.S. warns of possible Qaeda financial cyber attack

[Sapphire Blue]

U.S. warns of possible Qaeda financial cyber attack

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government has warned U.S. private financial services of an al Qaeda call for a cyber attack against U.S. online stock trading and banking Web sites beginning Friday, officials said on Thursday.

The officials -- a person familiar with the warning and a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security -- said the Islamic militant group aimed to penetrate and destroy the databases of the U.S. stock market and banking Web sites.

Homeland Security said it had no evidence to corroborate the threat but had issued the warning out of an "abundance of caution." The department said in a statement that the threat was for all of December.

"There is no information to corroborate this aspirational threat. As a routine matter and out of an abundance of caution, US-CERT issued the situational awareness report to industry stakeholders," said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke.

US-CERT is the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. The U.S. government said the threat was to avenge the holding of suspected terrorists at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061130/ts_nm/security_usa_qaeda_dc

[napi21]

1. Oh for goodness sake! Can't they let one day go by without

playing the damn fear card? With all the hackersin the world, and the fact that the no one has ever been able to penetrate the stock market data base, what in the world makes them think al Qaieda has the ability? IMO this is just more BS!

[Sapphire Blue]

4. No info to corroborate any threat; they're just being 'cautious'.

That's what they call it now.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. Yes, sensational = cautious in our post 9/11 US

Just like FOX News = fair and balanced.

[tanyev]

2. That would be a handy way to cover up the economic disaster

that is surely headed our way due to Bush's policies.

[Sapphire Blue]

5. ... and just prior to a Democratic Congress w/subpoena power...

:tinfoilhat: ... or maybe not.

[Karenina]

3. Whatever happened to

the Iranian Bourse? :shrug:

[Bitwit1234]

6. Now we know why bush has been harping on Al=que ada

Remember how the last two weeks bush has taken up the story that al-que ada is now doing this and now doing that. Al-que ada is responsible for the fighting in Iraq. So what he really wanted to do was start to scare the heck out of people again, to justify the fact that he wasn't going to bring the troops home from Iraq. And this so called attack is just intensifying it.

[Trillo]

7. Interesting.

I guess one question I have is IF this attack occurs, will it be considered a white hat or a black hat activity? For example, if the attack can happen, then doesn't it mean that computer security wasn't sufficient?

OTOH, if corporate has been massively stealing and lying, wouldn't the destruction of records by a so-called "terrorist organisation" be a understandable reason that such corporate theft cannot be investigated?

"Hey, the records are gone through no fault of ours, what can we possibly do?"