On Tuesday, July 8, multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were directed towards major banks and insurance companies in Norway, including the country’s largest telecommunications company, Telenor, by hackers claiming to be part of Anonymous Norway.

The attacks started in the morning, when DNB, Norway’s largest financial services group, announced that their website was partially down because of junk traffic affecting their systems, and customers experienced difficulties logging in.
According to the Norwegian publication News in English, the trouble lasted a little over an hour.

However, the hackers deployed attacks throughout the day targeting the websites of Norges Bank, Sparebank 1, Storebrand, Gjensidige, Nordea, Danske Bank and Telenor, along with those of other businesses.

Sverre Olesen, head of the security team at Evry, an IT company that delivers about one third of all IT services in Norway, has said that even if the attack was not the largest the company has seen, “it is the first time it has hit so many central players in the finance sector in Norway,” as more than eight financial companies were affected at the same time.

It appears that the attackers leveraged a security flaw in WordPress which allowed them to drive bad traffic to the servers of the targeted victims, consisting of Evry and their customers. Evry representatives said that other methods were also used, but did not disclose the flaw that allowed the incident to occur.

Dagens Næringsliv, a Norwegian publication, reported that they received a message from Anonymous Norway claiming the attack on Norges Bank and other businesses. It seems that Norges Bank was not even aware that their website was down when the email came in.

The message read, “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us. Sincerely, Anonymous Norway.”

It also said that “the motivation behind the current attacks and the next attacks in the future is to get the community to wake up. The number of major IT security attacks is increasing and there is nothing being done to prevent such events.”


On the other hand, the latest post on the Twitter account of Anonymous Norway denies responsibility for the DDoS incidents that affected Evry and DNB systems and says that script kiddies with no advanced tools are to blame.

Vi ler av de som mener vi står bak angrepene på EVRY / DnB - Det er ikke oss og det er skids som står bak. De har ingen 'avanserte' tools.
— Anonymous Norway (@AnonymousNorway) July 9, 2014
Roar Thon, technical director of National Security Authority (NSM), confirmed that deploying a DDoS does not require computer skills or hacking experience, as he told News in English that such an attack “is possible to carry out only with a credit card and the will to destroy.” This means that anyone with money in their pockets can hire botnets to bombard the systems of a victim with junk data.

There are no details about the motivation behind the attacks, but this can range from financial reasons to political ones.
Kepler Reviewed by Kepler on . Anonymous Norway Attacks Major Financial Institutions http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news-700/Anonymous-Norway-Attacks-Major-Financial-Institutions.jpg On Tuesday, July 8, multiple distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks were directed towards major banks and insurance companies in Norway, including the country’s largest telecommunications company, Telenor, by hackers claiming to be part of Anonymous Norway. The attacks started in the morning, when DNB, Norway’s largest financial services group, announced that their Rating: 5