After the threats from the Anonymous hacking collective that it would carry out an "electronic Holocaust" which the group vowed, "erase from cyberspace" for crimes in Palentines in March 4 video, Pro-Palestinian Anonymous hackers disrupted Israeli websites Tuesday, April 7, 2015 but with minimal success. However, the hacking group has successfully penetrated military networks.
It was told that the hacking campaign takes place every April 7 since 2013. And, last Tuesday's attack was meant to be against Israeli policies toward the Palestinians.
The attack is said to have targeted dozens of websites belonging to Israeli musicians and non-profit organizations. #OpIsrael, which is a part of Anonymous's annual operations, tweeted a claim that at least 150,000 phone numbers, Facebook, Gmail and Hotmail accounts have been hacked.
According to numerous reports, the hackers replaced website home pages with photos of a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem and of militants holding the Islamic State militant flag, and posted a message signed by "AnonGhost."
A civilian cyber security group called Israel's Computer Emergency Response Team, however, told that though the Anonymous had able to attack a few dozen websites belonging to Israeli musicians and non-profit organizations on Tuesday, the government websites, banks and public institutions were not affected.
But maybe cyber security group was wrong because according to a report, that private security researcher found out Friday that Anonymous hackers have managed to penetrate the Israeli's military computer networks using emails with attack software. Reportedly, the move had been going on for about four months and was most likely carried out by Arabic-speaking computer programmers.
Waylon Grange, a researcher in security firm Blue Coat Systems Inc who discovered the hacking campaign, said the vast majority of the software was collected together from widely available tools, such as the remote-access Trojan called Poison Ivy.
The hacking effort came days after the head of the cybersecurity program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, Dr. Gabi Siboni, gave cautions via Times of Israel that the possible terror attack would be made through hacking rather than physical attacks. And he was not mistaken.
Last February, Kaspersky Lab researchers also found out what they considered the first "advanced" Arabic-speaking hacking group, which they called Desert Falcons. Kaspersky said the group operated from Palestine, Egypt and Turkey and claimed about 3,000 victims in 50 countries, especially targeting military, government, media, and activist computers.
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