Anonymous, the global hacktivist collective, carried out a coordinated cyber-attack against Israel on April 7, Holocaust Remembrance Day, breaking into 100,000 websites, 40,000 Facebook pages, 5,000 Twitter accounts and 30,000 Israeli bank accounts, according to an Anonymous spokesperson. The cyber-attack campaign, dubbed #OpIsrael, saw hackers associated with Anonymous, including those in smaller enclaves based out of Morocco, Algeria, Syria and Gaza, defacing websites run by the Israeli government and stealing private information of government officials. Anonymous published a partial damage report on their blog, which includes a list of government websites affected – as well as the phone number of Prime Minster Netanyahu’s wife.
This campaign is actually the second time Anonymous has launched against Israel, as the original #OpIsrael was carried out in November last year in retaliation for the Israeli ‘Pillar of Defense’ military operation against Gaza. During that period, 700 Israeli websites were hacked, and the personal data of 5,000 officials were exposed, RT reported. The attacks this weekend were actually announced on March 7 by Anonymous member AnonGhost, who said, “The hacking teams have decided to unite against Israel as one entity and that Israel should be getting prepared to be ‘erased’ from the internet. Its not one Hacker, Its not one Team, But Various Hacker, Various Teams from all over the World are participating in this Operation! Its gonna be the biggest ever operation launched against any country, Its gonna be Huge!”
However, in spite of Anonymous’ grand claims, Israel has shrugged the cyber-attacks off, with Yitzhak Ben Yisrael of the government’s National Cyber Bureau telling the AP how the hackers had mostly failed to shut down key sites. “So far it is as was expected, there is hardly any real damage,” Ben Yisrael said. “Anonymous doesn’t have the skills to damage the country’s vital infrastructure. And if that was its intention, then it wouldn’t have announced the attack ahead of time. It wants to create noise in the media about issues that are close to its heart.”
As it turns out, Anonymous didn’t only get flak from the Israeli government, but also from Israeli hackers who basically decided that amateur hour was over and fought back. IsraeliElite, a group comprised of a dozen pro-Israel hackers, was formed on April 5 only two days before #OpIsrael was supposed to begin. One of the founders, going by the name Mitziyahu, told The Daily Beast, “Most Israeli hackers acknowledged the fact that the Arab hackers are… well not smart. So we did nothing. But this time, the public got scared, so we set out to regain their confidence.”
On April 7, these Israeli hackers actually broke into the #OpIsrael website, planting pro-Israel messages and embedding the Israeli national anthem. On the other hand, they also claim to have tricked the Anonymous hackers into attacking the website of Btselem, an Israeli human rights watchdog that operates in the Palestinian territories.
Most recently, an Anonymous hacker told RT “We are the sons of Palestinian people and we feel the pressure of the Israeli occupation not only in Gaza but also in all the Arab and Muslim world. And as the first retaliation we committed a fast and full-scale attack on Israeli websites to warn Israel and all its supporters about the threat that hangs over them. They have weapons and we have our own means. As a result of this attack we’ve received the names of those who cooperate with Israel. The aim of the attack was to show the world the true face of Israel and its armed forces. And we coped with our task.”
“So now we make a clear warning to Israel: “In the future be ready for new larger “surprises”,” he said.
