Bank of America’s (BAC: 9.23, -0.07, -0.75%) website was experiencing sporadic outages on Tuesday related to a cyber attack that may be tied to an Islamic terrorist group, according to a source close to the matter.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank’s namesake site, bankofamerica.com, was not loading as of 4:15 p.m. ET and has been down for hours.
A source confirms to FOX Business that Bank of America’s website was in fact hit by a cyber attack. It was a “technical attack” that was focused on BofA’s domain name service (DNS) infrastructure.
A BofA spokesman said "some customers may experience occasional slowness" but the bank is "working to ensure full availability." BofA wouldn't comment on the attacks specifically, but the spokesman said, "I can tell you we continuously take proactive measures to secure our systems."
A group called “Izz ad-din Al qassam Brigades” has claimed responsibility on PasteBin, which is a forum commonly used by these types of groups, including Anonymous, to issue threats or to brag about cyber attacks. In addition to the BofA attack, Izz ad-din Al qassam also said it is targeting the website of the New York Stock Exchange.
The source believes the outage was related to the threats issued on PasteBin against Bank of America and said that while it could be “just a big coincidence” it's “not likely.”
"It appears that the Radical Islamists have found the Group Anonymous playbook," the source said.