Cyber attackers join fight between Israel and Hamas
Russian and Iranian groups launch cyberattacks against Israeli infrastructure, while pro-Israeli and Indian collectives hit Palestinian targets.
Hacktivists have joined the attack launched on October 7, 2023, by the armed Palestinian group Hamas against the Israeli population, to which Tel-Aviv responded. As expected, Islamist, Iranian and Russian groups sided with Hamas. The terrorist organization is indeed funded by Tehran and unofficially supported by Moscow, as Israel is an unwavering ally of Ukraine and NATO.
The Islamist and pro-Russian group, Anonymous Sudan, first launched a DDoS attack against the Jerusalem Post. Immediately afterwards, Cyber Av3ng3rs, a group thought to be based in Iran, took down the website of Israel’s public electric utility. It then pursued attacks on Israeli power infrastructure and claims to have stolen data. Killnet, Russia’s main hacktivist group, also launched DDoS attacks on Israeli government websites.
On the other side, the pro-Israeli group, ThreatSec, claimed a cyberattack against the infrastructure of the AlfaNet network provider based in Gaza. Indian hacktivists from the Indian Cyber Force (responsible for a recent attack against Canada) claimed DDoS attacks against a number of Palestinian public services. Israel is one of India’s main arms suppliers, which could explain the support.