Israeli government websites face barrage of cyber attacks

Israeli government websites have been subjected to “unprecedented” numbers of cyber attacks since the start of the military offensive against the people of Gaza. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz told his government’s communications unit that around 44 million cyber attacks have been noted so far.

Well-informed Israeli sources have broken down the attacks as follows: 20 million targeted Israeli security websites; 10 million hit Israel’s presidential sites; 7 million have focused on the Foreign Ministry; 3 million have hit the Prime Minister’s website; and another 3 million attacks targeted the main “gov.il” government website.

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The “Anonymous” hacker group said last week that it has targeted hundreds of Israeli websites. Israeli sources revealed that an Israel Defence [sic] Forces gmail account was hacked into and used to spread a virus “apparently aimed at slipping a ‘Trojan horse’ into the computer servers” of government ministries and offices.

Haaretz newspaper added that according to the Norman cyber security company, the perpetrators of the cyber attacks on Israeli government websites are known to have attacked Palestinian Authority sites before.