Security News > 2022 > November > US Treasury thwarts DDoS attack from Russian Killnet group

The US Treasury Department has thwarted a distributed denial of service attack that officials attributed to Russian hacktivist group Killnet.

According to Reuters, which first reported on the US Treasury incident, the Killnet DDoS flood didn't have any operational impact on the agency and it happened a couple days before the Russians turned their attention to JPMorgan Chase.

Todd Conklin, cybersecurity counselor to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, described the event last month as "Pretty low-level DDoS activity targeting Treasury's critical infrastructure nodes."

Killnet claimed responsibility for downing US state government websites in Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi and other states.

The thwarted Killnet vandalization news also comes as the US Treasury released its most recent Financial Trend Analysis report on ransomware, which found US banks paid out nearly $1.2 billion in 2021 to extortionists.

The US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said it received 1,489 ransomware-related filings worth nearly $1.2 billion, a 188 percent increase over the $416 million filed in 2020.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/11/02/killnet_us_treasury_ddos/