Iran's Cyber Attacks Against 'Israel' Rise by 70%

Ranya Turki | a year ago

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While Israeli Occupation and Iran are exchanging threats to launch mutual military attacks, the virtual world is witnessing a remarkable increase in cyber-attacks attributed to the two sides, amid Israeli allegations that the Iranian army monitors 20 offensive electronic units, 10 of which are against the Israeli Occupation. This urges the Israeli security establishment to work day and night to thwart these attacks.

Israeli official Army Radio said last week that there was a "noticeable" increase in Iranian cyber-attacks that target Israeli infrastructure.

The same source quoted military officials as saying that the attacks had increased by 70 percent.

 

A Noticeable Increase

In light of the escalation of mutual threats between the Israeli Occupation and Iran, the cyber war between the two parties has erupted again.

A senior Israeli Defense Forces officer said last week that the military had foiled dozens of attempted Iranian cyberattacks during the past year.

Speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, he said: "In the past year, the IDF thwarted dozens of Iranian cyberattack attempts. In recent years, the friction between Israel and its enemies has intensified."

Iranian cyberattacks against the Israeli Occupation in the past year increased by 70%, as identified by the Israeli military.

"The IDF and the [cyber] defense community have developed breakthrough capabilities to defend against the enemy," the senior officer added.

According to The Times of Israel, "Israel's cyber defense community includes the National Cyber Directorate, the Defense Ministry's director of security of the defense establishment, and units within the Shin Bet security agency, Mossad spy agency, and the IDF."

More than 20 Iranian cyber units were identified, where at least 10 of them operate against the Israeli Occupation, according to assessments by the IDF's C4I Corps.

 

Spreading Fears

For years, Iran and the Israeli Occupation have been engaged in a largely clandestine cyberwar that sometimes overflows to the surface as both parties exchange accusations.

In 2020, the Israeli Occupation accused Iran of hacking its water system. At the same time, Iran blamed the Occupation for cyber-attack attempts targeting the country's infrastructure.

According to The Times of Israel, the IDF believes that "one of Iran's main goals when it comes to cyberattacks is to instill fear within Israeli society."

Thus, on the Israeli Occupation's part, Iran's significant goal is to target civilian sites, not necessarily the military, in order to spread fears and cause panic among the public.

Last year, an Israeli hospital witnessed an intense cyberattack, targeting its systems for several days until experts assisted in restoring its data.

According to Israeli narratives, Iran is investing enormous resources into the development of great cyber potential.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces have invested their own resources in its existing cyber defense capabilities, including holding routine drills with American counterparts at the United States Cyber Command, most recently in August.

 

At the Heart of 'Israel'

In November 2021, Israeli media announced a dangerous cyber-attack carried out by the Iranian hacker group Moses Staff. The latter targeted three major engineering companies in "Israel" and seized their databases.

The Jerusalem Post said at that time that the hacked companies ran infrastructure projects in "Israel."

The newspaper added that the worrying point in exposing such companies is the focus on engineering businesses that manage infrastructure projects, whether they are prominent building towers in Tel Aviv or managing projects for the Ministry of Transportation, such as the Ayalon Expressway, the Israel Railways, and the Light Rail.

The group attackers said on Telegram that they had hacked David Engineers, H.G.M, and Ehud Leviathan Engineering, according to the same source.

They added: "We have all the data and projects of these companies, including maps, photos, letters, contracts, and more. You can download some of this data from the link below, and the data of these companies will be published gradually."

Yedioth Ahronoth said the following day that the hacking operation of an Israeli website for gay dating revealed the largest leakage of personal information in "Israel."

The newspaper said an Iranian hacker group published, on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, the names of hundreds of thousands of Israeli gays and threatened on Sunday to leak further data and names if it did not get one million dollars within 48 hours, according to a Hebrew media.

Yoram Cohen, general director of the Israeli Internet Association, told Yedioth Ahronoth: "We are talking about one of the most difficult privacy breaches that Israel has ever known. There are Israelis today who are living in terror of cyber operations."

"This is terrorism, in every sense of the word. We have to start dealing with [what happened]. This is an emergency hour for us," he added.

This operation was preceded by the Black Shadow hackers, which "Israel" says is an Iranian group, and it caused a state of "complete paralysis."

This was not the end, Hebrew media revealed, on October 29, 2021, that Black Shadow targeted the accounts of the Israeli hosting company Cyber ​​Service, which has been working in Tel Aviv since 1997 and has provided vital Israeli companies with its services, and its penetration led to the disruption of access to the sites which is on its servers.

On October 26, one day after Iranian fuel facilities were subjected to an Israeli cyber-attack, the Hebrew press reported that an Iranian hacker group published accurate details, including the names, addresses, ranks, and units of hundreds of soldiers and officers in the Israeli army.

Iranian hackers published personal photos of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and threatened he will be "under surveillance." It had previously penetrated private companies in "Israel" and published the data of hundreds of its clients, according to the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.

The same group published, on its Darknet website and on one of the Telegram groups, files containing full details of an IDF combat unit, including the names, ranks, and training of soldiers.

The release of the data was accompanied by a message saying: "We will continue to fight until your crimes are revealed…this is just the beginning."