Second cyberattack on Israeli-run Jerusalem municipality

For the second time in a week, the website of the Israeli-run Jerusalem municipality has been exposed to a cyberattack that paralysed its electronic services, Quds Press reported on Friday.

Citing details published by Israeli news website Walla, the report said that the attack on the site was picked up by the municipality’s IT team. In response, the municipality decided to suspend all of its electronic services in order to avoid further losses should the attacks continue.

Cyberattacks against Israeli websites were first noticed in 2013, and were apparently carried out by Anonymous. The group says that it carries out such attacks in solidarity with the Palestinians and their cause.

According to Anonymous, it targets the websites of prominent and sensitive Israeli government departments and institutions in order to cause major losses. It has been successful several times over the past four years, pushing Israel to set up an IT unit specialising in the protection of its websites and able to fight back against cyberattacks. Israel itself is known to have initiated such attacks against Iran.