Some experts say that these attacks might have nothing to do with the controversial movie

Sep 28, 2012 06:56 GMT  ·  By

As promised, the hacktivist collective called Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters turned its attention to the website of US Bank (usbank.com) and the one of PNC Financial Services Group (pnc.com). Both sites have experienced temporary disruptions as a result of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks.

According to their last statement, the hackers are determined to continue the operation until the Innocence of Muslims video is completely removed from the Internet. They claim that over the upcoming weekend they will focus on selecting their future targets.

However, there’s much more to this story than some hacktivists taking down the websites of some banks. Many US officials believe that this may be the work of Iran.

Iranian officials have denied “hacking” the US financial institutions, but many insist that this is the Middle Eastern country’s way of protest against the sanctions imposed by the United States.

Furthermore, Dmitri Alperovich, co-founder and CTO of CrowdStrike, told ThreatPost that the motivation of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters might have nothing to do with the controversial movie.

Alperovich believes that this is a way for them to show off their capabilities.

“If a terrorist group is interested in sending a message to us, this is one way of doing so. It’s relatively inexpensive and powerful message,” he said, after pointing out that the group’s name resembles the one of a military wing of Hamas.

Another theory, presented by the famous hacker known as The Jester (th3j35t3r), claims that some Anonymous hackers may be aiding the Cyber Fighters in launching the DDOS attacks.

He has pointed out that Izz ad-Din al-Qassam is relying on a service called Multiboot.me, utilized on numerous occasions by Anonymous, and possibly even owned by some of the members of the hacktivist community.

At the time of writing, the websites of both US Bank and PNC were working normally.