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Another cyber attack targets Wells Fargo website

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Wells Fargo & Co.’s online banking operations have been knocked out intermittently by a cyber attack, the latest in a series of assaults since September on the websites of major U.S. banks.

The website sitedown.co, which enables customers to report outages on business sites, logged more than 200 reports for the San Francisco bank Tuesday from 7:30 a.m. through 1:30 p.m.

Wells Fargo said it was targeted by a denial-of-service attack, in which a website is bombarded with so many requests that it can slow down or stop working. Such attacks by themselves don’t jeopardize customers’ personal information, although experts say they sometimes are launched as a distraction while an attempt at identity theft is underway.

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The bank apologized for disruptions, describing the outages as on-again, off-again. Most people using the website were unaffected and customer information remained safe, Wells Fargo said. A spokeswoman recommended that customers try logging in again if service is interrupted.

A hacker group calling itself the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has taken responsibility for the attacks, saying they will continue until an amateur video portraying the prophet Muhammad unfavorably is taken down from YouTube.

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