Hackers Target Three Greek Banks, Demand Ransom In Bitcoin

The Armada Collective attacked the systems of three Greek banks (including the central bank) which interrupted transactions for a few minutes followed by the ransom demand.

The group, referred to as Armada Collective, has issued a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack threats after launching its first attacks on Thursday.

Ekathimerini.com reported yesterday that threats had been made by hackers against a number of Greek banks, demanding ransom payments to the tune of 50 bitcoins – now worth close to $19,000.

Yanni Koutsomitis, Eurozone analyst and managing director at Imperial Media, said that, on Monday, Greek authorities brought in FBI specialists to help with the investigation and countering the cyber-attack.

The police official clarified that the money was not given, but the hackers did not manage to have access to the bank accounts as the electronic safety systems were activated.

“No bank responded to this extortion, so the same group of hackers tried again at the weekend and today”, adding that “we had strengthened our defense for the meantime, so no attacks took place”. It is used to attacking mostly vulnerable businesses. ProtonMail, an encrypted email start-up set up by CERN researchers in Geneva, was targeted earlier this month. At that moment in time, they warned the institutions that a full collapse of Greek bank websites would be imminent if the ransoms weren’t paid up.

“In effect, they say: “Give us bitcoin or we will take you off the internet”, he explained.

There is also a strong possibility that these DDoS attacks are not being conducted by dedicated hackers, but by traditional blackmailers who are dabbling in cyberspace.

In June, the Greek government introduced capital controls to back up the country’s financial system and avoid the possibility of a Greece leaving the euro.