Iran Denies Cyber Attacks on US Banks

ABC News, By: Lee Ferran

The Iranian government has officially denied any involvement in the wave of relatively unsophisticated cyber attacks that have struck glancing blows on websites for U.S. financial institutions over the past months.

"Unlike the United States, which has, per reports in the media, given itself the license to engage in illegal cyber-warfare against Iran, Iran respects the international law and refrains from targeting other nations' economic or financial institutions," the Iranian mission to the United Nations said in a statement, according to a report published late Thursday by Iran's semi-official PressTV.

The websites for several major U.S. financial institutions, including Bank of America, PNC, Wells Fargo and the New York Stock Exchange have suffered intermittent disruptions since September, apparently the product of what's known as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks designed to flood the websites with enough traffic to knock it out of commission. The DDoS attacks, though unprecedented in size and stamina, do not breach the banks' secure networks or access confidential information. They have, however, kept some online customers from accessing their accounts for brief periods.

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