Posted on 11/30/2006 9:02:42 PM PST by xtinct
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government warned American private financial services on Thursday of an al Qaeda call for a cyber attack against online stock trading and banking Web sites beginning on Friday, a source said.
The source, a person familiar with the warning, said the Islamic militant group aimed to penetrate and destroy the databases of the U.S. financial sites.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed an alert had been distributed but said there was no reason to believe the threat was credible.
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued a "situational awareness report to industry stakeholders," said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke.
The warning said the threat called for attacks to begin Friday and run through the month of December in retaliation for the United States keeping terrorism suspects at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.
"Denial of service is what it called for," said a Homeland Security official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.com ...
Hmmmm...the NYSE electronic system was down for 4 hours today.
I think it was the first 4 hours.
Think it's a new threat... It's on radio news and Reuters tonight.
This is probing for a future attack (2010-2013). Sort of like Afgahanistan and Iraq, they're trying to gain the experience and the skills to pull something big off.
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