Brussels-based think tank study finds Israeli websites attacked 1,000 times a minute on the Internet.
By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Despite the recent spate of cyber attacks on Israeli websites, Israel was named as one of the three most cyber secure countries in the world in a recent study, according to a report by the Financial Times on Monday.According to the study, published by the Brussels-based Security and Defense Agenda think tank, Israel, Finland and Sweden had the best Internet defenses around their public and private websites.Israeli websites are attacked 1,000 times a minute on the Internet, the study said, noting that national strategies for web defenses have been drawn up and implemented.In recent weeks, Arab hackers have struck a range of private and public Israeli sites, using mostly DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, which take sites offline but do no damage to servers.On occasions, government-run sites that provide information to the public – such as the Fire and Rescue Service and Anti- Drug Authority sites – were hacked and their homepages defaced with anti-Israel rhetoric.This month, the National Cyber Defense Authority was officially launched.Operating under the Prime Minister’s Office, the Authority is tasked with coordinating Internet defenses for Israeli websites.Other countries that fared well in the study were France, Germany, and the UK, the Financial Times reported.India, Mexico and Brazil scored poorly in the report.