Israel-Hamas cyberwar : Google emphasizes key role of Iran

On February 14, 2024, Google’s cybersecurity teams published a report on cyberattacks in the war between Israel and Hamas. The account lays the blame on Iran for most of the cyber-offensives against Tel-Aviv. Indeed, in the six months prior to the October 7 attacks that set off the conflict, 80% of State-sponsored cyberattacks against Israel came from Iran.

Since then, Tehran’s cyber campaign mostly targets Israeli morale and support for the war. Destabilization therefore seems to have taken precedence over operational damage. “This includes destructive attacks against key Israeli organizations, hack-and-leak operations aimed at demoralizing Israeli citizens and eroding trust,” reads the report.

According to Google, Iranian State groups, such as Cyber Aveng3rs and Soldiers of Solomon, tend to exaggerate the impact of their cyber operations against Israel. Thus recently they made “exaggerated and misleading” claims about energy infrastructure attacks.

However, the report mentions several incidents with real operational consequences, particularly those involving wipers. Iranian cybercriminals are thought to have destroyed the data of several Israeli banking institutions in December 2023. Moreover, the attacks extend to Israeli companies operating in the West. In November and December 2023, two attacks thus hit the water supply systems of a US town and two Irish villages.

Moreover, Google researchers identified only a few cyber operations from Israeli groups. The most significant cyberattack against Iran, which took down 70% of the country’s gas stations on December 18, 2023, came from Predatory Sparrow, a group of exiled Iranian hacktivists.

Nonetheless, Google’s experts are qualifying the “cyberwar” observed between Iran and Israel. “In the Israel-Gaza region, we have not registered a peak in cyber operations” since the start of the conflict, reads the report.