Israel strikes on Palestine spark mass hack attacks

Isreal’s strikes on Palestine have provoked mass hacks on the country’s government websites.

According to Reuters, some 44-million hacking attempts have been made on Israeli government sites since it began airstrikes in Palestine last week.

So far, says Israeli finance minister, only one hacking attempt was really successful, taking a site down for ten minutes. The rest of the time, he claims, the defence systems have been able to keep sites up and running.

“The ministry’s computer division will continue to block the millions of cyber attacks,” Steinitz said. “We are enjoying the fruits of our investment in recent years in developing computerized defence systems.”

Israeli government sites typically see hundreds of attacks a day, although things have escalated heavily since the air strikes on Palestine began.

Defence force sites have been the hardest hit, while the president’s site has been hit 10-million times, the foreign ministry seven-million times and the prime minister three-million times.

Both sides have been active on social media, with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) going so far as to live blog some of its manoeuvres on Palestine. Combatants and civilians in Palestine meanwhile have been more active on Twitter, receiving support from hacker collective Anonymous.

“The war is taking place on three fronts. The first is physical, the second is on the world of social networks and the third is cyber,” Israel’s chief information officer Carmela Avner told Reuters.