CIBER GUERRA. Los hackers islamistas querían borrar a Israel del globo en Yom HaShoah

THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

As cyber-war begins, Israeli hackers hit back

Anti-Israel groups start predicted hacking operation, with little initial major success. An Israeli ‘strike force’ responds with pro-Israel content on a resonant domain name

Israeli Elite Strike Force seems to have been organized quickly in the past few days, in response to the threat by anti-Israel hackers to “erase Israel from the Internet” on April 7. The hackers released a list of some 1,300 Israeli sites that they planned to strike, claiming to have begun their attacks already on Saturday. But a check of most of the sites that the hackers claimed to have disabled – sites belonging to the Bank of Israel, the Tax Authority, the Central Bureau of Statistics, and other government agencies – showed they were operating normally. Several sites were hacked by groups associated with OpIsrael, but most of those were privately owned sites.

The hackers claimed to be identified with Anonymous, but Dr. Tal Pavel of MiddleEasterNet said that the group behind OpIsrael was most likely an ad-hoc assembly of Arab hacktivists calling themselves “Dangerous Hackers.” The group was not necessarily associated with international hacking group Anonymous, Pavel said, and on Saturday, individuals claiming to be members of Anonymous posted on the forum site 4Chan that they were not associated with OpIsrael. However, another alleged Anonymous site, possibly located in Sweden, on Saturday night claimed that Anonymous hackers were involved in the anti-Israel cyber attack.

A Twitter feed, ostensibly by Anonymous hackers, claimed it had stolen passwords and information from Israeli sites, including the Facebook account login data for Israeli government officials. However, Pavel said, such claims could not be trusted, because hacker groups often recycled old information from previously leaked databases, claiming it was fresh, in order to score a public relations victory. In several instances in recent days, said Pavel, he discovered that names and passwords hackers claimed to have stolen from Israeli servers last week were several years old.

Meanwhile, Israeli Elite Strike Force worked on Saturday night to pull down more sites. The group started attacking sites in Pakistan Friday but took off for Shabbat.

“We wish all our JEWISH brothers a Shabbat Shalom,” the group said in its Twitter feed. “This was just a little taste before the day of rest. Hell’s Fire To Come.”