U.S. Banks Under Cyber Attack

The U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security said as follows:

"Right now, financial institutions are actively under attack. We know that. I'm not giving you any classified information."  "I will say this has involved some of our nation's largest institutions. We've also had our stock exchanges attacked over the last [few] years, so we know ... there are vulnerabilities. We're working with them on that."

When asked whether the cyber attackers had stolen money, Napolitano answered in the affirmative, but declined to provide further details, according to The Hill.  She added "one of the possible areas of attack, of course, is attacks on our nation's control systems – the control systems that operate our utilities, our water plants, our pipelines, our financial institutions. If you think that a critical systems attack that takes down a utility even for a few hours is not serious, just look at what is happening now that Mother Nature has taken out those utilities. The urgency and the immediacy of the cyber problem; the cyber attacks that we are undergoing and continuing to undergo can not be overestimated."   Given this current economic and technology environment, businesses should enlist the assistance of computer security experts to identify and correct vulnerabilities in their systems.