Suspected Iranian DDoS cyberattack takes down Israeli government websites
Suspected Iranian DDoS cyberattack takes down Israeli government websites
Former senior executive at Israel’s National Cyber Directorate estimates that Iran initiated the attack due to the growing tensions between the countries. “We are heading into a period of wide-scale escalation in cyberspace,” he said
Israeli government websites, part of the Gov.il domain, suffered a cyber attack Monday, likely originating in Iran. What is believed to have been a DDoS attack began around 6:15pm local time, with an irregular increase in traffic being exhibited on the servers running the Gov.il websites. The bandwidth of the attack is believed to have reached 15-20 gigabytes.
“Over recent hours a DDoS cyberattack on a communications provider was identified, the result of which prevented access to several websites for a short time, including government websites. As of now all the websites have returned to function,” said the National Cyber Directorate.
Refael Franco, co-founder of cybersecurity company Code Blue and the former Deputy Director General for Robustness at the National Cyber Directorate, was far more stern in his response. “This is a state of emergency and an unprecedented attack on government websites. It can be estimated that this is part of the cyber blows being exchanged with Iran. We are heading towards a period of wide-scale escalation in cyberspace.”
Earlier Monday, a Twitter page affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took responsibility for the attack and stated: “The Zionist regime will not forget tonight.”
