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Israeli Government Websites Taken Down By a Massive Cyberattack
Kavita Iyer
A cyberattack on Monday evening disrupted the Israeli government websites in what is believed to be a denial of service (DDoS) attack that resulted in Israel's cyber protection agency declaring a state of emergency.
According to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, the cyber-attack was the largest ever carried out against Israel as per a source with Israel's defense forces. The websites of the interior, health, justice, and welfare ministries, as well as the Prime Minister's Office, were taken down in the online attack. However, the services of all these websites were restored and back online.
#BREAKING: Large-scale cyberattack against Israel. Government websites are down. pic.twitter.com/aPg2TsQimI
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) March 14, 2022
"In the past few hours, a denial of service (DDoS) attack against a communications provider was identified. As a result, access to a number of websites, among them government websites, was blocked for a short time," the Israel National Cyber Directorate said on Twitter.
Gil Messing, the spokesman for Israel-based Check Point Software Technologies, a leading provider of cybersecurity products to governments and corporations throughout the world, said it was unlikely any substantial damage was caused.
What is a DDOS Attack?
A DDoS attack is a cyber-attack in which the attacker floods the targeted machine or resource with superfluous requests in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being fulfilled.
Israel's Ministry of Communications said it conducted an "assessment of the situation with the emergency services in the Ministry of Communications, following a widespread cyber-attack on government websites." However, it did not accuse any group of carrying out the attack.