What Happened?

On October 11^th, a Russian hacker group known as “Killnet” claimed that it successfully hacked into the JPMorgan Chase & Company infrastructure. Killnet reportedly did so by using a “relatively unsophisticated” Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack (Zurier).

A Denial of Service attack is meant to overwhelm a server or computer with a lot of traffic and data. Since the server is so busy receiving all of this junk data, it cannot process any real data from legitimate users. A Distributed Denial of Service does the same thing, except for one key difference: instead of one device sending the traffic, many devices are used to send loads of data/traffic to the sever.

Who are Killnet?

Killnet are a Russian hacker group that frequently targets countries such as the United States and Ukraine. “Killnet was not initially created to be a hacktivist group. Rather, the moniker stems from a tool that hackers could use to launch DDoS attacks”, hence why their signature hacking move is a DDoS attack (Zurier). They have since risen to become a hacktivist group as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war (Zurier).

It currently seems that one of their goals is to show that the digital infrastructure of United States companies is not as secure as it may seem. It also seems that they hope to reach some sort of media fame as a result of attacking the digital infrastructure of the U.S. and other countries.

What Damage Did Killnet Cause?

According to Reuters.com, “the company has not seen any impact on its operations yet” as a result of the hack. Thus, while the attack may have occurred, it seemed to have been mostly ineffective at interrupting any services and has not caused any known damages. JPMorgan Chase is continuing to monitor the situation (Reuters.com).

What Should I Do?

DDoS attacks are meant as disruptions and usually do not result in any data being compromised. However, if you have an account with JPMorgan Chase & Company and are worried that you may have been put at risk due to this attack, you can always change your password and enable multi-factor authentication (if available) to help keep yourself safe. Having extra security never hurts.

Resources & Further Reading

Reuters. “JPMorgan Says It Is Not Seeing Any Impact from Alleged Hack.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 11 Oct. 2022, https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/jpmorgan-says-it-is-not-seeing-any-impact-alleged-hack-2022-10-11/.

Zurier, Steve. “Amid Reports of JP Morgan Cyberattack, Experts Call Killnet Unsophisticated, ‘Media Hungry’.” SC Media, 12 Oct. 2022, https://www.scmagazine.com/analysis/cybercrime/amid-reports-of-jp-morgan-cyberattack-experts-call-Killnet-unsophisticated-media-hungry.