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Anonymous Shifts Focus from Banks to Stock Exchanges As OpIcarus Continues

Group engages in phase three of OpIcarus

Jun 8, 2016 01:10 GMT  ·  By
Anonymous announces OpIcarus phase 3
   Anonymous announces OpIcarus phase 3

OpIcarus, the Anonymous operation that aimed to launch a barrage of DDoS attacks against the banking sector, has reached phase three, which is now called OpMayhem (Fight Club reference) and is targeting stock exchanges all over the world.

In a video released on YouTube over the weekend, the hacker collective laid out a plan of attack for the rest of the month, gathering all members (called Anons) to rally and launch coordinated attacks on global stock markets.

At the time of writing, the group has successfully launched DDoS attacks against the NYSE Euronext Market, the London Stock Exchange, Nasdaq Baltic, the Philippines Stock Exchange, the Lao Security Exchange, the Turkey Stock Exchange (Borsa Istanbul), the Athens Exchange Group, and the Panama Stock Exchange.

If you think these are five-minute DDoS bursts while the hackers take a screenshot and brag on social media, then you're in for a surprise.

The DDoS attack that took place on June 2 and targeted the London Stock Exchange forced its website to stay offline for two hours, even if market transactions continued to operate, being on separate servers.

Anonymous: All stock markets are targets

The hackers don't have a particular list of targets in mind, and in a statement uploaded on PasteBin, the group simply pointed to a link that listed all stock markets in the world in alphabetical order, as their future targets.

While the first phase of OpIcarus went almost unnoticed, phase two, which took place in the month of March, successfully launched DDoS attacks on banking portals all over the world. In a tweet, an Anonymous member said they hit at least 67 banks.

Below is a YouTube video put out by the hackers, along with tweets sent out through the first week of June, whenever the group's members would carry out attacks.

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