The US Treasury says it easily stopped an attack by a notorious Russian hacker group
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The US Treasury Department was recently the target of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack launched by Killnet, a well-known pro-Russian threat actor.
Reuters claims Killnet targeted the Treasury sometime between attacking more than a dozen US airport websites and banking giant JPMorgan Chase in early October 2022.
However, the DDoS attacks failed to disrupt airport operations, failed to disrupt JPMorgan Chase, and similarly failed to disrupt the Treasury, it was confirmed.
Low Level Activity
In fact, Wally Adeyemo, cybersecurity adviser to the deputy treasury secretary, described the attack as “pretty low-level DDoS activity targeting the Treasury’s critical infrastructure nodes.” The Treasury did not comment further on the incident.
Killnet is apparently going after American targets because of the country’s support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. The group seems very patriotic, because in addition to the US, Killnet has also targeted companies in Romania, Italy, Norway and Lithuania, all countries that have sided with Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
Earlier this month, the group took down a number of websites from various airports in the United States, using custom software and recently listing the affected domains on its Telegram channel.
While the attack did not disrupt flights, it did affect other airline services. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) websites went down during the attack. The attacks also hit Denver International Airport (DIA), Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), Orlando International Airport (MCO), Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), and several others in Kentucky, Mississippi and Hawaii.
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