News

DDOS attack takes down online, mobile channels at TD Canada

March 22, 2013

Toronto-based TD Canada Trust was the target of a distributed denial of service attack yesterday. The cyber attack shut down the bank's online and mobile banking services for several hours.

A DDOS attack takes place when an FI's website is bombarded with fake log-in requests and meaningless sent data. The operation is usually coordinated through a number of servers — including those of innocent server owners who don't even know that their equipment has been hijacked.

Several recent attacks have targeted some of the largest banks in the U.S., including PNC Bank, Wells Fargo, Citibank, Bank of America and others.

These have been carried out by the Muslim group, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters, in protest of the film, "The Innocence of Islam," which they believe is an insult to their religion. Al-Qassam has vowed to continue its attacks until all traces of the film are removed from YouTube, according to the group's manifesto.

The attack did not interfere with ATMs, branch banking or telephone banking, said TD spokeswoman Barbara Timmins in an article by the Ottawa Citizen. Nor was any customer or account data compromised in the hack.

Within hours, the consumer banking functions were again available. Business customers had to wait somewhat longer for service to resume.

Read more about security.