Gaza Tension Fuels Cyber-Warfare on Israel in #OpSaveGaza; Web Sites Breached, Defaced

Growing tension over the Gaza strip has moved into cyber-space as hackers increasingly target Israel for the country’s recent bombings and air strikes. As Israel’s military seems to strike on ground, an apparent army of hackers is retaliating against Israeli web sites and sensitive data.

Many Israel-based web sites have been defaced in the past week, regardless of their actual purpose, and messages related to the Gaza conflict were posted.

“If you are a Hacker, Activist, a Human Right Organisation then hack israel websites and expose to the world their crimes,” the hackers said on the defaced web sites.

“As We Did In many times at 7/April ! #Anonymous_Arabe Will repeat the #Electronic Attack’s Against Israelien’s Websites !”

Many hacked web sites lists have been around the internet lately, a great deal of them containing the anti-Israeli messages above. The AnonGhost hacktivists, for example, published a full list of hacked Israel-based web sites with mirrors and another list was announced on Twitter.

Other hacking groups such as the Tunisian Hackers Team, Anonymous and many individual hackers have also breached and defaced Israeli web sites.

Meanwhile, the AnonGhost group has leaked alleged details of many Israeli Government web sites and their databases.

The Israeli Justice Department, Educational Ministry, Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Culture had their databases leaked online on Pastebin. These databases contained names, organizations, addresses, emails and phone numbers.

In separate leaks on Pastebin, the hackers posted alleged emails with plaintext passwords and some with encrypted passwords.

Photo Credit: Euro-Mid Observer

All these events have culminated with the hacking of Israeli Channel 10 TV station by HAMAS hackers, calling for an end to Gaza air strikes.