Cyberattack Crashes Israeli Government Websites

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Several government websites were shut down by a Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on an Israeli communications provider on Monday evening, March 14, the National Cyber Network reported on its Twitter account. By flooding a targeted machine or resource with excessive requests, denial of service is usually accomplished in an attempt to overload systems and prevent some or all legitimate requests from being addressed.

Beginning in the evening, access to several government websites was denied for more than an hour, and it was initially unclear whether it was a malfunction or a denial of service attack to bring the websites down.

Globes.co.il reported that information security experts believed this to be an Iranian attack group, based on recent events, although an official announcement is yet to be made.

“Memshal Zamin”, e-Government Unit, reported the attack in real time, and stated that it is being treated. Yoaz Handel, Minister of Communications, inspected the situation with the emergency services and monitored the incident through to a full recovery of operations.

The government sites returned to full functionality shortly after the attack.