Moscow fears foreign cyber-attack on financial system

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) denounced on Friday a foreign secret service's cyber-attack plan to destabilise Russia's financial system.

The attacks were scheduled for December 5, and would target several Russian cities, said a statement from the FSB, Efe news reported.

The FSB, however, assured it had heightened measures in place against the cyber-security threats.

The agency released the statement identifying the servers from which the cyber-attacks were planned to be launched. It said they were located in Holland and belonged to a Ukrainian company called BlazingFast.

The attacks, according to the statement, allegedly involved mass SMS sending and social media posts about a crisis in Russia's credit system involving bankruptcy and the revocation of licenses of Russian banks.

In October, the US government officially accused Russia of staging cyber-attacks that enabled WikiLeaks to publish some 20,000 National Democratic Committee emails.

Washington said the cyber-attacks sought to influence the US presidential elections outcome on November 8.

--IANS

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