On March 28, American Express’ website went offline for at least two hours during a distributed denial of service attack. A group calling itself “the cyber-fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam” claimed responsibility for the attack, which began at about 3:00pm Eastern Time. The attacks are part of a larger trend of disruptive and destructive attacks on financial institutions by apparently politically motivated groups, the most damaging of which was the attack on South Korean banks and other companies last week.”]