Hackers pledge upcoming 9/11 cyber attack

A pro-Syrian hacker collective promising to strike the US on September 11 is reportedly behind attacks against Israel targets which saw credit cards and data pilfered and published from Israel organisations.

The promised strikes by a group dubbed AnonGhost triggered the FBI to issue a statement last month that they were aware that an “Anonymous-affiliated group” may launch a wave of cyber attacks against US and foreign financial institutions.

The attack would support OP USA, a previous campaign against similar institutions that occurred in May. OP USA was officially announced and organised by “Mauritania Attacker,” according to the FBI, “who launched OP ISRAEL and is the founder of Mauritania Hacker Team and AnonGhost Team.”

One breached website, which offered web-hosting services, provided names, phone numbers, emails addresses and passwords.

"Mauritania Attacker," alleged to be the AnonGhost team leader, told news site techworm.in that the reason Israel has been targeted is because of attacks against Palestinian innocents and children.

Some of the other sites breached in the attacks include hashraa.co.il, Yamit 2000 and the website belonging to Avishay Braverman, a member of the Knesset for the Labor Party in Israel, according to a release put out by Israel-based internet security company Maglan and reported on in English by Israeli news site israellhayom.com.

The veracity of the claims by AnonGhost will be tested on Wednesday, a day the collective seems poised to carry out a massive cyber attack and release even more information. AnonGhost has been rallying the cause on Twitter, but further proof of intention was hidden within several of the websites' codes, notably in a threatening image with the date Sept. 11 and the Twitter hash tag #OpIsraelReborn.

The Israel Hayom article indicates that Maglan reviewed more than 40,000 compromised records and verified that the information released is genuine. However, the article goes on to say that Maglan identified a number of users whose information was “not up to date and had been changed a long time ago.”

A Maglan representative could not be reached for comment.

This article originally appeared at scmagazineus.com