Israel Confirms Hacking Attack on PM's Website

Anti-Israel hackers succeeded in bringing down temporarily the website of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the site of the Likud party, the Avnet information security company said Tuesday. "The )PMO's) site is suffering from an attack on its connection between the database and the web server," Avnet's Ronni Becher said, The Jerusalem Post reported.

"At this stage we don't know how the attack was carried out exactly, and what can be done to defend against it. Overnight, we saw dozens of attempts to hack and attack Israeli websites. Much information was released online…," he added.

More than 100,000 Israeli websites came under attack from Anonymous hacktivists around the world.

The websites of the Israeli parliament, banks, ministries and other government organizations were down for some time on Sunday during the assault, dubbed Operation Israel. The loosely-knit hacking group Anonymous threatened to "disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace" in protest over its mistreatment of Palestinians.

The hackers also released a list of email addresses and credit card numbers, reportedly lifted from the online catalog of Israel Military, a privately-owned business that sells military surplus, Haaretz reported. Israel Military officials indicated that the information made public did not come from its site.

A Middle East hacker, who took part in the massive cyber assault, said that the operation's aim was "to show the world the true face of Israel and its armed forces."

"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 stated.

Israel responded to mass cyber attacks on Sunday by launching a series of raids in which several Palestinian activists were arrested, President Mahmoud Abbas' advisor for communications and information technology Sabri Saydam told WAFA.

Nothing indicates that the Palestinians have anything to do with the hacking of Israeli sites, Saydam added, calling it "a cyberspace battle" and stressing that the Internet "is open to all".

In a message released Saturday the group addressed the Israeli government saying: "You have NOT stopped your endless human rights violations. You have NOT stopped illegal settlements. You have NOT respected the ceasefire. You have shown that you do NOT respect international law."