Thousands of Websites Defaced in Cyberattack Calling for the ‘Destruction of Israel’
Thousands of Israeli websites, some of which belong to large companies, were defaced on Thursday morning after the servers of website hosting service uPress were hacked. Instead of their usual content, websites showed a video depicting the “destruction of Israel.”
The cyberattack, claimed by a group called Hackers of Saviour, brought down the company’s servers. Then, hackers altered a file on each site stored on uPress’s servers, allowing them to replace its content with the anti-Israeli video.
skip
– Bibi swears in his colossal coalition and readies for a courtroom showdown
Bibi swears in his colossal coalition and readies for a courtroom showdown Haaretz
Apart from defacing the websites, the attack isn’t said to have caused any further damage and no malware was detected. The hackers attempted to erase the websites’ data, but it remains unclear whether they succeeded in even gaining access to databases.
uPress said in a statement posted on its Facebook page that the attack was caused by a WordPress vulnerability, adding it is working with Israel’s National Cyber Security Authority to retrieve the website’s original content. Its customer service for website owners crashed later on Thursday.
Get breaking news and analyses delivered to your inbox
Email*
Please enter a valid email address
Sign up
Please wait…
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Try again
Thank you,
The email address you have provided is already registered.
Close
The firm said the hackers are Iranian but provided no evidence to support these claims. The Iranian government is unlikely to be involved in the operation, as states rarely conduct such a form of cyberattacks.
Check Point’s Director of Cyber Intelligence, Lotem Finkelstein, told Haaretz the group of hackers comprises of nine people, who have been active since April, and are “probably” linked to Turkey, the Gaza Strip and North Africa. “It doesn’t mean there isn’t more of them, but for now we can’t confirm any Iranian activity,” he said.
Website hosting services are considered a highly desired target for hackers, as they allow access to multiple websites with a single attack. uPress is one of Israel’s biggest website hosting services.