Hacktivist attacks against Israeli websites mirror attacks following Russian invasion of Ukraine

Hacktivists have launched lots of of internet defacement attacks against targets in Israel following the devastating assault by Hamas on Israeli civilians on 7 October 2023.

More than 100 hacktivists launched over 500 attacks on websites in Israel within the week following Hamas’ assault on party-goers attending a pageant in Kibbutz Re’im, near the Gaza border.

The Hamas incursion, which led to 1,300 deaths (at the very least 260 on the pageant), was adopted by a wave of defacement attacks on Israeli websites to indicate help for Gaza and Palestine, in line with researchers at Cambridge University.

The hacking spree adopted an identical sample to the hacktivist attacks that adopted the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, researchers at Cambridge’s cyber crime centre discovered. The key distinction is hacktivist attacks have been one sided – focusing solely on Israeli targets, with nearly no attacks recognized on Palestinian websites.

According to the Cambridge University researchers, hacktivists started focusing on Israeli websites inside hours of Hamas gunmen attacking 1000’s of younger folks attending a music pageant on the Kibbutz. The quantity of defacement attacks peaked two days later following Israel’s declaration of warfare, and peaked once more on 13 October. The hacking patterns have been much like attacks that adopted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2020.

The researchers discovered the quantity of attackers focusing on Israeli websites constructed up following an preliminary surge of attacks earlier than the quantity of attackers dropped off steadily, with solely three hacktivists nonetheless lively on 16 October. Offensive attacks against Israeli websites exceeded the quantity of hacktivist attacks against the Ukraine, however have been lower than the quantity of attacks against Russia, the researchers discovered.

“While the attacks targeted both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Israel-Hamas war has been one-sided, with no significant attacks against Palestine thus far,” the researchers stated.

The researchers discovered that web site defacers have been extremely centralised, with the highest 10 most lively accounting for practically 80% of the attacks. One hacktivist was accountable for over 20% of web site defacements. Out of 530 defacement attacks against Israel analysed following the Hamas assault, greater than 300 Israeli websites have been defaced with messages supporting Palestine, with hashtags resembling #opisarel, #freepalestine #savepalestine and #savegaza.

The proportion of attacks expressing help for one aspect within the Israeli-Hamas battle is far increased than seen within the Russian-Ukraine warfare, the place solely 7% of attacks explicitly expressed help for one aspect.

There is little proof of hacktivists attacking high-profile targets in Israel, the researchers discovered. Most of the attacks have been directed against companies. An Israeli housing affiliation, a big public faculty in Israel, and a subdomain of the Israeli defence forces have been additionally attacked. As with the Ukraine warfare, most of the defacement targets have been strategically unimportant, the researchers discovered.

The Jerusalem Post reported on October 9 that it had been focused by a collection of cyber attacks which had briefly left its web site inaccessible. Defacement attacks against Israel seem like extra persistent than these on Russia or Ukraine, however it’s unclear when the attacks against Israel will tail off, a analysis report discovered.