Israeli government websites have been targeted by more than 44m hacking attempts since Israel began its Gaza air strikes last Wednesday, but apparently only one attack has been successful.
Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said yesterday that one attack had been successful but that the site was up and running again after 10 minutes of downtime.
According to Reuters, a ministry spokesperson said that while the attacks had come from around the world, most had come from Palestinian and Israel territories.
“The ministry’s computer division will continue to block the millions of cyber attacks,” Steinitz told Reuters. “We are enjoying the fruits of our investment in recent years in developing computerised defence systems.”
Meanwhile, a message appeared online yesterday, professing to be from the hacking group Anonymous.
“It has come to our attention that the Israeli government has ignored repeated warnings about the abuse of human rights, shutting down the internet in Israel and mistreating its own citizens and those of its neighbouring countries. November 2012 will be a month to remember for the Israeli defence forces and internet security forces,” read the post.
It went on to say: “We will strike any and all websites that we deem to be in Israeli cyberspace in retaliation for the mistreating of people in Gaza and other areas.”
On 17 November, Anonymous said it had launched attacks on almost 700 Israeli websites under the name #OpIsrael to retaliate against attacks on Gaza.
