Israel braces for massive cyber-offensive

Hackers around the world are plotting to strike Israel’s online presence in a coordinated cyber-attack later this week. The effort, known as “OpIsrael,” which is being organized by hacktivist group Anonymous, aims to target the 100 largest websites in the country, especially those of banks, credit card companies, and communications firms.

The attack is scheduled to take place Sunday, April 7. That evening, Israel begins to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

According to “Mauritania Attacker,” who leads a group of hackers called AnonGhost, “the hacking teams have decided to unite against Israel as one entity, and Israel should be getting prepared to be ‘erased’ from the Internet.”

“Its gonna be the biggest ever operation launched against any country, Its gonna be Huge !” said Mauritania Attacker in an interview to The Hackers Post.

Shai Blitzblau, CEO of Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research, told the Hebrew daily Israel Hayom Tuesday that the attackers’ skills are increasing all the time, but have yet to reach previously unseen levels.

Experts have warned that in addition to mounting a major Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, similar to the one that was recently released to the web by hosting company Cyberbunker and which has caused a worldwide slowdown in Internet speed, the hackers will also try to plant “Trojan horses” infecting web users with viruses.

Uri Rivner, head of cyber strategy at BioCatch, recommended that Israelis avoid accessing threatened websites for a few days, giving their owners time to make sure no malicious codes were installed.

The first OpIsrael cyber-attacks were launched by the Anonymous hacktivist group during Israel’s November operation Pillar of Defense against terrorists in the Gaza Strip. Anonymous-affiliated hackers attacked over 700 Israeli websites, with Israel deflecting 44 million cyber-attacks on government websites.

more here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-braces-for-massive-cyber-offensive/