‘Hacktivist’ groups say they are hitting Israeli targets online amidst the war in Israel & Gaza, disrupting & defacing websites such as the Jerusalem Post.
The conflict between Israel & its Arab neighbours routinely attracts both intense global interest & politically minded hackers – dubbed hacktivists – who take their cue from this, either to support their side or simply get attention.
AnonGhost
“There are dozens of victims every day, claimed by both pre-established & new hacktivist groups,” cyber intelligence firm Recorded Future stated.
Examples of serious or long-term damage are still few, but the activism shows how some supporters use digital tools to bring the war online.
As yet, among other incidents, a set of hackers supporting Hamas, known as AnonGhost, have claimed they disrupted an Israeli emergency alert application, according to their social media channel.
Another group, named ‘Anonymous Sudan’, explained on Telegram they were actively targeting Israel’s critical infrastructure, although it provided little by way of evidence for its claims.
DDoS
More than 100 websites in Israel have been either defaced or temporarily disrupted through simple distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), which work by flooding a site with a rush of inauthentic traffic, according to security analysts.
“The attackers have managed to knock us offline for extended periods over the past few days,” Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief Avi Mayer revealed in an email. “This is a blatant assault on freedom of the press.”
Israeli CERT
Israel’s Computer Emergency Response Team, or CERT, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
It is often difficult to determine the accuracy of hacktivists’ claims. The same dynamic played out in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which saw a volunteer army of pro-Ukraine hackers claim credit for numerous attacks on Russian websites & other online services.
Analysts do, however, expect significant cyber-espionage activity to happen behind the scenes.
Last week, Microsoft released a report which recorded how one Gaza-based hacker group known as Storm-1133 had increased its cyber spying efforts on Israeli companies involved in telecommunications, defence, & energy earlier this year.
Hamas
“We assess this group works to further the interests of Hamas,” the report stated.
Omri Segev Moyal, the Chief Executive of Israel cyber-security firm Profero, explained that his firm had recently picked up some hacking activity tied to an Iranian spy group nicknamed Muddy Water, & intrusion attempts potentially linked to Molerats, another group that researchers believe acts for Hamas.
Molerats activity “stopped after the bombing started,” he outlined.
