Anonymous continues its "cyberwar" against Israel

Over the past week, as situations continue to escalate between Israeli and Palestinian forces, 44 million hacking attempts have been made on some of Israel’s top government and news websites.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz told Reuters that only a handful of important websites were down for around ten minutes last week, but quickly returned to normal due to the country’s top security systems:

“The ministry’s computer division will continue to block the millions of cyber attacks.

“We are enjoying the fruits of our investment in recent years in developing computerized defense systems.”

However, a list of more than 600 of the sites that have been attacked has since been published to Pastebin and it includes the likes of the Bank of Jerusalem and Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others. Reuters also reports that a whopping 44 million hacking attempts have been made on Israeli sites in total:

“Attempts on defence-related sites have been the highest, while 10 million attempts have been made on the site of Israel’s president, 7 million on the Foreign Ministry and 3 million on the site of the prime minister.”

The attacks were attributed to hacking group Anonymous after a press release was published over on AnonPaste last week, which called out the Israeli government’s plans to deny those in Gaza access to the internet:

“But when the government of Israel publicly threatened to sever all Internet and other telecommunications into and out of Gaza they crossed a line in the sand. As the former dictator of Egypt Mubarack learned the hard way – we are ANONYMOUS and NO ONE shuts down the Internet on our watch. To the IDF and government of Israel we issue you this warning only once. Do NOT shut down the Internet into the “Occupied Territories”, and cease and desist from your terror upon the innocent people of Palestine or you will know the full and unbridled wrath of Anonymous. And like all the other evil governments that have faced our rage, you will NOT survive it unscathed.”

However, Anonymous’ rage is continuing this week, but it’s not just DDoS attacks on websites now that poses a threat, but the leaking of sensitive information. A release added to Pastebin over the weekend allegedly reveals the names and details of those who have donated to the Unity Coalition for Israel, a network that represents pro-Israel groups.

Another document on good ol’ Pastebin also reveals a load of email addresses belonging to what looks like those who are high up in the US government and a number of news organisations too. They’re believed to be members of the Unity Coalition too, but that’s not been officially confirmed quite yet.

Check out the original Anonymous Operation Israel press release.

[Via Reuters]