European Investment Bank’s Website Down Following Cyberattack

• The European Investment Bank has been the target of a cyberattack.
• Killnet hackers to impose sanctions on the European banking transfer systems.

The European Investment Bank (EIB), the world’s largest multilateral lender, has been the target of a cyberattack. Russian hackers are expected to be the suspects who threaten to bring down the Western financial system days later. Moreover, earlier today, the pro-Russian Killnet hackers claimed on their telegram that they had attacked the internetwork infrastructure of EIB.

On June 19, the European Investment Bank tweeted that the bank’s website was down due to a cyberattack that it had faced. The tweet mentioned that the bank was responding to the incident. Moreover, the bank’s website was still not accessible. 

Europe’s Support for Ukraine

Recently, the European Commission and European Investment Bank announced that they have agreed to give an EU guarantee that will allow the EIB to lend Ukraine $100 million for quick recoveries, such as municipal or energy infrastructure repairs. 

Russia’s aggression against Ukraine continues to result in tremendous human misery, extensive damage to towns, cities, and infrastructure, as well as serious economic disruption.

The EU and EIB have provided valuable funds for relief support for Ukraine since the start of Russia’s war. Moreover, the EU has made available 70 billion euros for the support of Ukraine and its people. 

Now, the EU is guaranteed to allow the EIB to provide an additional 100 million euros to Ukraine, which will be complementary to the EU4Ukraine Fund.

Killnet Expected to be Suspect in European Investment Bank Attack

The cyberattack comes days after threats by Russian-speaking hackers to target Western financial institutions over their support for Ukraine. So, the EIB cyberattack is likely to be related to the cyber threat made by pro-Russian hackers in response to European support for Ukraine. 

In the recent telegram post, Killnet stated,

Hello, Europe! How are things with the IBAN banking system? I feel like something is wrong with her. Perhaps the transfer system is affected by bad weather. And also, the weather forecasters say that not only IBAN will be dead, but also SEPA, WISE, and SWIFT.

The Killnet gang specializes in taking down websites offline through distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. DDoS attacks overload a website with traffic to the point where it crashes.

According to the report, three heads of hacker groups from Russia and Sudan held a meeting on the darknet parliament 72 hours before. After a long discussion, the hackers decided on SOLUTION №0191. That means the hacker groups will start to impose sanctions on the European banking transfer systems SEPA, IBAN, WIRE, SWIFT, and WISE. 

Moreover, cyber security experts believe that the Killnet gang made up of Russian hackers who may have connections to the government of that nation.