Israeli takes over OpIsrael hacktivist website

For second time in one week, Israeli seizes control of website for those seeking to hack Israeli sites, posts pro-Israel facts, video.

By JPOST.COM STAFF
Anonymous 370 (photo credit: Screen capture)
Anonymous 370
(photo credit: Screen capture)
Anti-Israel hackers succeeded in temporarily bringing down the website of the Prime Minister’s Office and of the Likud Party, the Avnet Information Security and Risk Management company said Tuesday morning.
“The [Prime Minister’s Office] site is suffering from an attack on its connection between the database and the web server,” Avnet’s Roni Becher said. “At this stage, we don’t know how the attack was carried out exactly, and what can be done to defend against it.”
He added that “overnight, we saw dozens of attempts to hack and attack Israeli websites.
Much information was released online, but most of it does not represent a real achievement, as it is old content that has not been updated.”
Various government websites also appear to have been a target of the hacker group Anonymous, as stated on the Twitter account the group used for the operation, @OPIsrael. The group claimed to have brought down official sites such as those of the Finance Ministry, the Agriculture Ministry and the Foreign Ministry. All the sites now appear to be up and running.
Prior to these cyber attacks, Avnet set up a situation room to monitor attacks on Israeli websites. It said on Sunday that so far there had been a number of significant leaks from websites, but that in general, the affected websites were small and had not invested in basic security measures.
Over the weekend and on Sunday, hackers claimed to have broken into hundreds of Israeli Facebook accounts, and updated their Twitter account with a list of Israeli websites they said they had hacked.
According to Becher, “it seems that these are simply quite basic attacks that are not unusual in their complexity...
and which suit amateur children.”
The Yad Vashem website, however, came under a “fairly massive attack,” said Becher, adding that this was in line with the hackers’ decision to strike near the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day events. The website was only down temporarily.
Other major sites affected by Anonymous’s Israel operation include he Education Ministry’s.
Anonymous had announced it would strike at Israeli websites, claiming that Israel had attempted to curb Internet access for Palestinians. The attacks, Anonymous said in a video announcement released at the end of March, were an act of solidarity with the Palestinians.