In the wake of Operation “Tempest of Al-Aqsa,” cyberattacks on Israeli websites and applications have surged, according to cybersecurity monitoring company “Recorded Future.” Various adversarial hacking groups targeting Israel’s digital infrastructure have achieved significant disruptions. While information on the full extent of the consequences of these cyber operations remains limited, a group known as “Anon Ghost,” with affiliations to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), proudly claimed the disabling of the Israeli emergency alert application.
“Falcon Vidsio,” a platform specializing in tracking cyber threats to small and medium-sized businesses, reported that an electronic hacking group calling themselves the “Electronic Tiger Unit” has issued warnings to Israel and other Middle Eastern nations supportive of Israel. These warnings indicate the group’s intent to carry out potential cyberattacks. The Electronic Tiger Unit, whose nationality remains undisclosed, previously targeted the Israeli Intelligence agency (Mossad) with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This attack successfully halted over 100 websites, including the official Mossad website. In tandem with the launch of Operation “Tempest of Al-Aqsa,” the unit announced these attacks, threatening their extension to Arab nations supporting Israel.
Another group of activists from Bangladesh, self-identifying as the “System Admin BD,” executed a similar cyberattack on Israeli websites, temporarily disabling the Israeli Meteorological Service website. Subsequently, the concerned authorities managed to restore it.
These cyberattacks were not limited to the Israeli side. “Indian Cyber Force,” a group of hackers supportive of Israel from India, took down the official website of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 8th. They justified their actions as promoting the idea of peace in the Middle East, aiming attacks exclusively at websites endorsing war.
This same group targeted “Alpha Net,” the largest service provider of electronic services in the Gaza Strip. They organized systematic campaigns against the company’s servers, resulting in the freeze of a portion of the infrastructure in the region. The hackers gained control over the Internet Protocol (IP) address responsible for distributing more than 5,000 servers in Gaza, which explains the internet blackout on October 8th.
According to the group’s statement, their motivation for launching these cyberattacks stems from their aversion to war and their pursuit of ending it. They argued that, just as Israel had previously attacked, today Gaza, home to many Hamas members, retaliates in a digital domain.
The “Ghosts of Palestine” group, known for hacking various Israeli websites, has called on hackers worldwide to attack both private and public Israeli infrastructure, as well as that of the United States.
