While this is not strictly directly related to Shariah Finance, we do find it rather curious. Perhaps the Iranian hackers do not realize that big Western banks like these have played a large role in facilitating Shariah-compliant finance in the West? Because they are actually targeting allies here in one sense…Note however, that the Iranians are not reported to have targeted HSBC, Standard Chartered, or Deutsche Bank, three big Western banks that have been heavily fined by the US government for illegally doing business with Iranian interests and entities recently…
Iranian hackers have repeatedly attacked Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc over the past year as part of a broad cyber campaign targeting the United States, according to people familiar with the situation.
The attacks, which began in late 2011 and escalated this year, have primarily been “denial of service” campaigns that disrupted the banks’ websites and corporate networks by overwhelming them with incoming web traffic, said the sources.
They said there was evidence suggesting the hackers targeted the three banks in retaliation for their enforcement of Western economic sanctions against Iran. Whether the hackers have been able to inflict more serious damage on computer networks or steal critical data is not yet known.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/21/us-iran-cyberattacks-idINBRE88K1AR20120921
