(Paris) The war between Israel and Hamas is also unleashed in the virtual world, with cyberattacks increasing since the ground attack of October 7, but without serious intrusion for the moment, according to cybersecurity experts.
“As in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the number of cyberattacks has increased. But we cannot talk about cyberwar: it is mainly about denial of service attacks (DDOS), an intentional, minor congestion that makes a website inaccessible for a few hours, explains François Deruty, director of intelligence at the cybersecurity company Sekoia.
Another technique of these “hacktivists”: “defaced” sites. The home page is replaced by a black screen or a propaganda message.
Israeli government or media sites, as well as energy or defense groups, have been targeted by this type of attack, but without data theft or operational paralysis, experts point out. An app that warns Israelis of an attack, Red Alert, has also been shown propaganda messages, such as “the nuclear bomb is coming.”
“Groups of hacktivists mobilized until now on the war in Ukraine have reoriented themselves on this conflict for a week, with the objective of finding victims, including Western companies, including French ones. But these operations are only communication, not cyberwar,” adds the expert from a large cybersecurity company.
“Attacks against Israeli websites, which are very well protected, are generally of the denial of service type,” confirms Mohammed Boumediane, boss of the cybersecurity company Ziwit. According to him, “other big attacks could take place this weekend or early next week, because thousands of brute force attacks are underway.”
This process consists of testing password combinations, particularly for denial of service attacks.
“Among the attackers are foreign groups: pro-Palestinian Russian pirates and pro-Israeli Indian pirates,” adds François Deruty of Sekoia. Israeli websites have been victims of the Russian-speaking group Anonymous Sudan, which supports Hamas, as well as the Russian group Killnet.
In addition, less visible Iranian groups quietly support attacks against Israel, he believes.
Anonymous Sudan thus claimed responsibility for an attack on the electronic version of the Jerusalem Post newspaper, which was paralyzed for many hours. The Killnet group announced its intention to target Israeli government websites.
“But we have not seen a data erasure attack, as Ukraine suffered, although Iran could provide such tools. It is true that Israel’s cyber defensive level is very high, even higher than in Ukraine,” he notes.
On the other hand, Indian groups attacked Palestinian websites. This is a consequence of the diplomatic ties between India and Israel, analyzes the Sekoia expert, as well as the relationship between Indian groups and Israeli start-ups which are their suppliers.
The attacks against these Palestinian sites were fewer, but sometimes more serious, notes the boss of Ziwit. He cites a cyberattack against AlfaNet, a Palestinian internet service provider in the Gaza Strip, claimed by the Indian Cyber Force group.
In a report at the beginning of October, the Microsoft group indicated that it had noted in early 2023 a significant wave of attacks from the group Storm-1133, based in Gaza and which supports Hamas. They targeted Israeli organizations in defense, energy and telecommunications.
