Israel Braces for Cyber Attacks by “Anonymous” Hacktivists
“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20)
(Photo: צוריאלדומן/ Wiki Commons)
Israel is bracing itself for expected cyber attacks on Israeli institutions by pro-Palestinian hackers. Websites of various governmental agencies were taken offline on Monday as precautionary measures against the attacks.
In an operation called OpIsrael, Israeli security leaders ranked the cyber risks posed by the hacktivists as high. Walla reported that the whole cyber attack operation is connected to the infamous Anonymous group.
An annual attack, hackers utilize their talents to take over Israeli websites throughout the day using such methods as denial-or-service attacks. This is the second year OpIsrael has taken place.
The anti-Israel hackers, who have called themselves “Anonymous Operation Israel,” called on “cyber warriors from across the planet” to attack Israel online.
“On April 7, 2014, we call upon our brothers and sisters to hack, deface, hijack, database leak, admin takeover, and DNS terminate the Israeli Cyberspace by any means necessary,” the group said in a YouTube video.
Israeli cyber security advisors warned the Israeli public not to open emails from unknown sources, to avoid suspicious links on Facebook, and to monitor bank accounts for activity.
The Israeli government, fearing that viruses could be sent to state agencies, has shut down all computers containing important data.
Last year, OpIsrael attacked numerous Israeli websites such as Yad Vashem, the IDF, and the Prime Minister’s Office.
Anonymous Operation Israel – April, 7 2014
Announced Cyber Attack On Israel Fizzled
By: Joe Charlaff, Contributing Editor
04/15/2014 ( 7:08pm)
The international hacking group “Anonymous” and other groups of hackers declared Monday April 7 would be a day of cyber attacks on Israel in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Gaza. But they’re much touted cyber assault on the Jewish 
state didn’t succeed in bringing down many Israeli-based websites.
state didn’t succeed in bringing down many Israeli-based websites.
In these attacks, the hackers actually targeted "weaker" websites and tried to bring them down via distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, inundating a website's servers with requests thereby causing an overload. These DDoS attacks, however, are normally resolved within a short period of time.
With advance warning of the potential impending attacks, Israel was well prepared. There was excellent intelligence beforehand, resulting in minimum disruption and damage.
Anonymous had called on “cyber warriors from across the planet” to attack Israel online.
“On April 7, 2014, we call upon our brothers and sisters to hack, deface, hijack, database leak, administration takeover and DNS terminate the Israeli cyberspace by any means necessary,” the group had warned in a YouTube video that was posted on April 2.
On the same date last year, Anonymous attempted to disrupt Israeli websites, including that of Yad Vashem, the Prime Minister’s Office, and the Israel Defense Forces website – also with limited success.
Ahead of the anticipated large-scale cyber attack, Israel temporarily suspended some of its government websites' international traffic and advised employees to abstain from opening emails for five days to fend off a potential mass-cyber attack by pro-Palestinian hackers, an Israeli security source told Homeland Security Today.
“As a group they generally are influenced by various radical Islamist and terrorist movements, who drive them to attacking Israel,” said Daniel Cohen, research associate at the Institute of National Security Studies (INSS) Cyber Warfare Program.
“During the first attack at the time of the IDF’s Operation Pillar of Defense attack against Hamas in Gaza in November 2012, there were 100 million attacks against Israeli internet sites, and 600 attacks against government sites,” he told Homeland Security Today.
Cohen pointed out that in the most recent attacks there was good intelligence beforehand. The attackers were monitored on Facebook and private chat rooms, and the teams responsible for protection of government sites knew who they had planned on attacking and were well prepared to counter DDoS attacks and defacement.
As a result, the attackers were successful in penetrating only a few sites, causing very little damage.
According to the Ynet Israel news site, hackers published lists of telephone numbers, emails and passwords that they claimed belong to senior Israeli officials. It's unclear where the information came from, but analysis shows that the lists were from last year and the information was only partially correct.
On the same night, another group calling itself “Anonymous Yemen” posted the email addresses of 18 parliamentarians on Facebook. They also posted emails and passwords for those who have already retired.
Despite Israel’s successful defense by online “hacktivist” group Anonymous, cyber attackers are advancing faster than the defenders, Maj. Gen. Uzi Moscovici told the annual cyber conference of the INSS. Moscovici is head of the IDF’s J6C4i Directorate.
US Rear Admiral (ret) Norman Hayes, who also addressed the conference, emphasized the need for much greater international cooperation, and bringing hackers to justice.
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