The US Treasury says it easily stopped an attack by a notorious Russian hacker group

The US Treasury Department was recently targeted by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack launched by Killnet, a known pro-Russian threat actor.

Reuters claims Killnet targeted the Treasury sometime between attacking more than a dozen websites belonging to US airports and banking giant JPMorgan Chase early in October 2022.

HoweverThe DDoS attacks failed at disrupting the airports’ operations, failed at disrupting JPMorgan Chase, and in a similar manner, failed at disrupting the Treasury, too, it was confirmed. 

Low-level activity

In fact, Wally Adeyemo, cybersecurity counselor to Deputy Treasury Secretary, described the attack as a “pretty low-level DDoS activity targeting Treasury’s critical infrastructure nodes.” Other than that, the Treasury did not comment on the incident. 

Killnet is apparently going after US-based targets due to the country’s support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia. The group appears to be very patriotic, as besides the US, Killnet has also targeted companies in Romania, Italy, Norway, and Lithuania, all countries that sided with Ukraine since the Russian invasion. 

Earlier this month, the group took down a number of websites belonging to different airports across 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. During the assault, websites belonging to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) and the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) went under. The attacks also affected Denver International Airport (DIA) Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD), Orlando International Airport (MCO), Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX), and a number of others in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Hawaii.

Via: The Register (opens in new tab)