HackersHackers continue cyberwar against Israel
As part of an intensifying cyberwar against Israel, on Monday hackers brought down several key websites including the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the national airline, and three banks
The Tel Aviv stock exchange has been a target in the cyberwar // Source: ahmnews.com
As part of an intensifying cyberwar against Israel, on Monday hackers brought down several key websites including the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, the national airline, and three banks.
The latest round of attacks come weeks after a hacker, using the handle 0xOmar, released the details of 20,000 Israeli credit card holders. Prior to the most recent attacks, 0xOmar warned Israel’s Ynet news outlet that Nightmare, a pro-Palestinian group of hackers, would bring the sites down the next day.
Using a denial of service attack, the hackers bombarded the sites with activity until they became overloaded and were shut down. Three hours before the attacks commenced on Israel Radio, Yoni Shemesh, who oversees the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange’s website, said, “We are putting up blocks to the hackers. It is a real cyberwar.”
Meanwhile as a precautionary measure, El Al, Israel’s national airline, took their site down as soon as they noticed abnormal activity.
According to an airline spokeswoman, who remained anonymous per company policy, El Al’s website usually receives about fifty simultaneous access requests at any given time during the morning hours, but at roughly 10 AM, “we saw that the number had risen to about 1,000, [and] we closed it down,” she said.
The militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, welcomed the attacks and praised the hackers for heeding the group’s call to open up ”a new front for electronic resistance and war against the Israeli occupation.”
In an email to the Jerusalem Post, 0xOmar said attacks against Israeli businesses and government agencies will continue and ”everything related to military or credit cards” would be published until Israel apologizes for ”their genocide in Palestine and Gaza.”
0xOmar also urged others to join him in his mission to “hurt/harm Israel in any possible way.”
”I invite all hackers to join this movement,” 0xOmar wrote. “This is the beginning of cyber war against Israel, you are not safe anymore.”Avi Weissman, the chairman of the Israeli Forum for Information Security, said Israel, in terms of cybercapabilities, may be a powerhouse “in terms of attack, but in terms of defense, we are a very small and pretty neglected country.”
