Israel this week has faced a heavier than usual amount of cyber-attacks, but local hackers are doing their bit to fight back. And you can follow their progress in near-real time thanks to the magic of Twitter.
Israel on average defends against tens of thousands of cyber attacks every day. But international hacker group Anonymous, or a branch thereof, sought to truly overwhelm the Jewish state this week with its annual #OpIsrael campaign, during which anti-Israel hackers seek to crash or penetrate Israeli websites and networks.
Their success had thus far been extremely minimal, with only a handful of websites suffering limited downtime or being temporarily defaced with anti-Israel content.
The Israeli hackers who have been fighting back, on the other hand, have had far more impressive results. In addition to crashing and defacing numerous anti-Israel or radical Islamist websites, including the official #OpIsrael website, the Israeli group known as Israeli Elite Force actually broke into the personal computers of many of their anti-Israel foes.
An Israeli Elite Force hacker calling himself Buddhax published a document including the names, email addresses and various online login information of several of the Anonymous-affiliated hackers. Buddhax even managed to snap mugshots of some of the anti-Israel hackers using their own webcams.
Buddhax and the Israeli Elite Force said they hope that by demonstrating the relative ease with which they can expose the anti-Israel hackers, the latter will “think twice next time before they try to attack Israel.”
Another senior Israeli hacker told the online news website “0404” that the Israeli side “didn’t need to make any special preparations,” noting that “Anonymous Palestine” is simply not a serious threat.
The anti-Israel hackers “are good at talking and small hacks, but we aren’t dealing here with the global Anonymous,” said the Israeli, explaining that “Anonymous Palestine” is primarily made up of small groups of Arab and other anti-Israel hackers who unilaterally decided to use the name “Anonymous.”
The Israeli hacker said that the response from the Israeli side was very minimal. “We carried out some small operations that hit the Arab world, websites and some online accounts, but this was not an official Israeli response. It was just child’s play.” The hacker continued: “It is really not recommended that they [Anonymous Palestine] mess with Israel, and they know this well.”