Israel warns ‘largest cyberattack’ hit country and spies say Iran is to blame

CYBERCRIMINALS have been targeting government websites in Israel – and one expert believes they’re from Iran.

Several Israeli government networks were met with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) cyberattack on Monday, the DailyDot reported.

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Israeli officials suspect the cyberattacks came from another country, though they have not been able to confirm anything yet.

One former senior cyber authority official named Rafael Franko believes that an Iranian hacking group could be to blame, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Franko specifically identified the Iran-affiliated hacker group Black Shadow as the perpetrators.

He also alleged that the group was behind cyberattacks on the Israeli diamond exchange over the weekend as retaliation to the ongoing Israeli-Iranian conflict.

Monday’s assault shut down many Israeli servers and was described by experts as the largest-ever DDoS cyberattack conducted against the country.

DDoS assaults consist of disrupting a network or server’s normal traffic by overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic.

Israel’s cyber protection agency declared a state of emergency shortly after the cyberattacks, according to the New York Post.

The bad actors took down websites for the nation’s interior, health, justice, and welfare ministries.

Also targeted was the Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett’s office.

As of Monday night, the servers have been restored.

“In the past few hours, a denial of service attack against a communications provider was identified,” the Israeli National Cyber Directorate said.

“As a result, access to a number of websites, among them government websites, was blocked for a short time. As of now, all of the websites are operational,” the agency added.

Israel is reportedly assessing the networks of other official websites and government infrastructure for potential compromise.