Syrian hackers will find it difficult to hurt American targets

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The highest threat levels originate not from the Arab world, but from Chinese and Russian hackers.

“We know from experience that Syrian hackers are not professionally experienced enough to harm American targets,” this is according to Doron Sivan, General Manager of MADSEC Security. Sivan adds that most of the Syrian hackers’ activities are against large websites, but not financial sites, or even critical sites for that matter. “Although the Syrian hackers keep trying to harm these kinds of targets, their activities are monitored and blocked,” Sivan explained, “but organizations with lower levels of security must be prepared to face hacker attacks.”

According to Sivan the only way for Syrian hackers to attack Americans is by using the already established methods of breaking into accounts and stealing e-mail addresses and passwords. “There’s a Syrian group called op-usa# that has a list of American targets, but not much more than that.” He adds that “Americans can attack Syrians in various ways, not just their websites: communications servers that are not found using Google searches, or infrastructure systems. It’s not clear, however, whether an attack against the Syrian population is in accordance with American interest.”

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

As to the “electronic Syrian army,” Sivan believes that despite its high motivation the organization’s capabilities are low, and it will probably gain access to some websites or passwords, nothing more. It would probably attack Israeli targets, too.

When asked if Israel can learn something from this cyber war between Syria and the U.S., Sivan said: “Israel is always on the cyber scene, but the most severe threats do not originate from the Arab world – Chinese and Russian hackers are the most dangerous. In the case of a war against the Arab states Russian hackers might focus their attention on Israel, and the country must be prepared. Unusual activities must be detected quickly and blocked immediately.”