Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkc4i.org>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1932000/1932750.stm

Tuesday, 16 April, 2002

Israel has been suffering a barrage of hack attacks since the start of
the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

According to security firm mi2g, the Israeli domain .il has been the
biggest victim of web defacements over the past three years, suffering
548 of the 1,295 attacks in the Middle East.

As violence escalates in the region, cyber attacks on Israel are also
on the rise.

In the past 14 days, Israel has suffered about two-thirds of the
significant web defacements in the Middle East.

Online threats

The most active anti-Israeli hacker group claims to be Egyptian and
started its activities just weeks after 11 September.

Cyber warfare can be used as a barometer for political tensions around
the world, said mi2g Chief Executive, DK Matai.

"The tense situation in the Middle East is reflected in both covert
and overt hack attacks," he said.

Israel is vulnerable not just because of its action against the
Palestinian Authority, but also because it has the largest number of
internet connections in the Middle East.

Israel has 2.4 million net connections, more than any of the 22 Arab
countries.

Attacks on infrastructure?

So far hacktivism has been limited to web defacements and denial of
service attacks. This is where a web server is bombarded with messages
causing it to fall over.

It is possible for the political hackers to intensify their campaign,
said Peter Sommer, senior fellow at the Computer Security Research
Centre at the London School of Economics.

"It is entirely feasible to mount an attack on critical national
infrastructure," he said.

"From a pro-Arab point of view it would be far more effective than
sending in a suicide bomber."

Cyber-politics

Hacktivism is a growing problem on the internet as activists utilise
the web to get across their political messages.

One of the most prolific hacktivists is a group of Pakistani hackers
calling themselves GForce Pakistan.

Soon after the 11 September, the group defaced a server belonging to
the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

It also threatened to target US and British military sites unless the
US withdrew from Saudi Arabia and ended its bombing campaign in
Afghanistan.

Similar attacks were seen during the Serbian conflict, the US-China
spy plane incident in April 2001 and the China-Taiwan standoff in
August 1999.

 
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