Hacktivist group suspends bank attacks
Halting of ongoing DDoS attacks follows YouTube's removal of controversial anti-Islam video, al-Qassam group says
The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters group launched the attacks last October to protest the posting of a 14-minute trailer of "Innocence of Muslims," a movie insulting Prophet Muhammed that sparked widespread protests across the Middle East last year.
At that time, Google removed the video in some countries but let it remain on YouTube in several other countries because the video did not violate its policies.
The al-Qassam group, which claims to be based in Iran, launched a series of dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attacks against Wells Fargo , JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, CapitalOne, Citibank and more than 20 other banks. The attacks, which have caused considerable service disruptions to the banks, have been ongoing since then.
In a statement posted on Pastebin on Tuesday, the group said that it was stopping the attacks for now. "Well, after a while a little bit of rationalism was seen and the main copy of the insulting movie was removed from YouTube," the statement noted.
"This is a clear indication of progress and establishment of logic instead of obstinacy.
This positive move is a humanitarian effort and in line with paying respect to divine religions which has made billions of people love them," the statement read.
