On Monday, Israel’s National Cyber Directorate announced that the country suffered a major cyber attack that briefly took down several Israeli government websites. “In the last few hours, a denial of service (DDoS) attack has been identified on a communications provider which, as a result, has for a short time prevented access to a number of sites, including government sites,” the government-funded directorate declared on Twitter.
Israeli Government Websites Were Unreachable Internationally After the Major Cyber Attack
It further added, “As of this hour all the sites are back for an activity.” But while accessible once again inside Israel, web monitoring group NetBlocks stated late Monday Israeli government websites were “unreachable internationally” after the major cyber attack. Attempts by AFP reporters to reach the home pages of several Israeli ministries and the National Cyber Directorate failed at just after 2000 GMT.
#BREAKING: Large-scale cyberattack against Israel. Government websites are down. pic.twitter.com/aPg2TsQimI
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) March 14, 2022
Furthermore, the Israeli media outlet, daily Haaretz stated that the country’s defense establishment believed it was the largest-ever cyber attack launched against the country. Israel’s Ministry of Communications said it performed an “assessment of the situation with the emergency services in the Ministry of Communications, following a widespread cyberattack on Israeli government websites.”
Iran Has Previously Accused Israel of Attacking Nuclear Facilities of Iran
Furthermore, it was not immediately clear who carried out the major cyber attack. Previous hacks on Israeli government websites have been attributed to attackers linked to Iran. Access to some of the Israeli government websites had been restored, the government stated. While the homepages of some government pages were down, subdomains continued to work. Iranian state TV declared Iran had blocked an attack on the nuclear site in Fordow. Iran has previously accused Israel of carrying out similar attacks in the past on the country’s nuclear establishments.
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Source: Engadget
