Notorious hacking collective Anonymous has leaked thousands of e-mail addresses and passwords, and taken down hundreds of Israeli Web sites, in retaliation for what it calls Israel's barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of Palestinians.
In a large-scale attack, dubbed #OpIsrael, Anonymous hackers promised to take down over 40 Israeli government and military Web sites and, to date, through denial-of-service attacks, have taken several sites offline, while others have been defaced with pro-Palestine messages.
According to the Israeli government, since it began strikes on Gaza last week, it has been hit with over 44 million cyber attacks.
In addition, thousands of e-mail addresses, phone numbers and addresses, of government officials, citizens and Israeli supporters, have been leaked online.
Carmela Avner, Israel's chief information officer, said in a press release: "The war is being fought on three fronts. The first is physical, the second is the world of social networks, and the third is cyber attacks.
"The attackers are attempting to harm the accessibility of Israel's government Web sites on an ongoing basis. When events like the current operation occur, this sector heats up and we see increased activity. Therefore, at this time, defending the governmental computer systems is of invaluable importance."
On 15 November, Anonymous said in a press release: "For far to [sic] long, Anonymous has stood by with the rest of the world and watched in despair the barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of the Palestinian people in the so called 'Occupied Territories' by the Israel Defense Force. Like so many around the globe, we have felt helpless in the face of such implacable evil. And today's insane attack and threatened invasion of Gaza was more of the same.
"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."
According to Times of Israel, Israeli finance minister Yuval Steinitz said on Sunday that hackers are targeting the symbols of Israeli sovereignty, defacing Web sites with anti-Israel content, and compromising information and data. He said this is aimed at damaging the government's ability to serve the public. According to him, the majority of attacks were against government sites, such as the prime minister's office site, and security-related sites, like the Home Front Command, the body charged with informing Israelis on how to protect themselves in the event of an attack.
The attacks, which began last week, have been ramped up, as Anonymous says the Israeli government has ignored its repeated warnings. "November 2012 will be a month to remember for the Israeli defense forces and Internet security forces. Israeli Gov. this is/will turn into a cyberwar," said Anonymous.
Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CTO of security giant AVG, says the Middle East is prone to hacktivist activity whenever a political issue rears its head, and this has been the case for the past 15 years. He adds that Anonymous' attacks come as no surprise and are not the only ones we are seeing today. "Cyberspace is part of the political battle now. As a result of these attacks, the Israeli hi-tech industry is rich with security companies providing solid protection against such attacks."
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