Specifically, water controllers for irrigating fields in Israel’s Jordan Valley were damaged, as were control systems for the Galil Sewage Corporation. Hackers are shutting down the water for both irrigation and sewage control systems. The management for both major systems was scurrying all day on 9 April morning to work through the issue and bring these vital systems back into full operation. The specific source of the cyber-attack is currently unknown.
Cyber-attack warnings - Farmers in this region were warned several days prior about suspicions over a planned cyber-attack. Some of them, as a result of the warning, disconnected the remote-control option for their irrigation systems and switched them to manual operation to prevent any harm from the attack. Unfortunately, those who left their systems on remote control were the ones impacted by the attack.
The National Cyber Organization warned the previous week about the increase in attempts at cyber-attacks by anti-Israeli hackers throughout the Islamic month of Ramadan. Indeed, Israeli media agencies, medical websites, government websites and university websites all faced massive cyber-attacks throughout last week, including throughout the Jewish Passover holiday.[1]
These attacks are part of what is known as OPIsrael, an annual event among anti-Israel hackers that takes place every April with the goal of harming critical infrastructure to Israel. "When these systems are hacked, the potential for damage is very great," according to a research department manager at cyber defense company Cyberizen. "In this case, we are seeing an attack on thousands of water monitors in the Hula Valley region which has a direct impact on the physical dimension and, beyond creating mere fear and panic, directly impacts agricultural areas."
Last week, United Hatzalah of Israel has been hit with tens of thousands of cyber-attacks as part of the larger hacker attack against Israeli institutions known as, again, OpIsrael. The attacks, which have put a major focus on attacking government sites, and websites of health and educational institutions, have targeted the national EMS organization as well. “We received notification from the Israel National Cyber Directorate that we were one of the organizations that would likely come under attack,” explained United Hatzalah spokesperson. “Over the past two days, we have seen tens of thousands of attempts from phishing scams to attempted direct logins which tried to gain control of management interfaces for the website (CMS). There have also been attempts to gain access to identification data and attempts to find or exploit weaknesses on our web pages to take down our main sites via SQL injections. Thankfully our cyber team has been able to stop all of the attempts thus far.”
One of the recommendations that the organization received to prevent further attacks was to limit access to its website via Geolocation technology and to only allow people to visit or access the site from countries where the cyber threat is deemed to be less, this includes countries from the EU and North America until OpIsrael is over. “Limiting access to our website to countries that are less likely to have hackers who carry out cyber attacks against Israel, is just one of the tactics that we will be using to safeguard our site and the information contained therein,” they explained. “One of our websites has been hacked in the past and as a result, we have a very firm policy regarding cyber safety throughout the year. Our entire staff is briefed on this and has to undergo specialized training regularly to learn how to recognize the most common types of cyber and phishing attacks. Even though we are entering the holiday of Pesach and in the month of Ramadan, times when many of our team are away or on vacation, we are maintaining vigilance against these attacks and have teams safeguarding our sites and information at all times.”[2]
Many times, hacking events go hand in hand with military operations. Israel has see escalating terrorist violence in the past week. Israel's military said it struck targets in Syria on 9 April after rare rocket fire from its northeastern neighbor as tensions simmered at a volatile Jerusalem shrine important to both Jewish and Muslim worshippers.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that fighter jets had hit targets, including “military radars systems and artillery posts,” and “a military compound of the Fourth Division of the Syrian Armed Forces.” This followed strikes on rocket launchers that had fired toward Israeli territory, the statement said. In separate tweets, the IDF said six rockets were launched from Syria toward Israel in two separate batches and three had been intercepted.
One of the rockets landed in the southern Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the IDF said. The area borders Syria, which considers the territory as its own. Seized by Israel from Syria during the Six-Day War in 1967, it has been annexed since 1981. It is considered an occupied territory under international law. No damage or casualties were reported in Israeli territory, and it was unclear if there were casualties in Syria.
Israel's defense minister, later tweeted that he had ordered that the crossing from Gaza be closed “until the end of the Jewish Passover holiday,” which concludes on 12 April. “IDF forces will increase the activity of the Israel Police wherever necessary,” he said. His comments came after Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV quoted Al-Quds Brigade, a militia different from the larger Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing with a similar name, as saying it fired the rockets to retaliate for the police raid on Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to the Associated Press.
The strikes on the Christian holy day of Easter came hours before thousands of Jewish worshippers gathered at Jerusalem’s Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews can pray, for a mass priestly benediction prayer service for the Passover holiday. Above the Western Wall, hundreds of Palestinians performed prayers as part of observances during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Hundreds of Jews also visited the compound under heavy police guard.[3]
The site has been at the center of violent scenes this past week as Muslim worshippers attempting to stay overnight in the mosque were forcibly removed by Israeli police. Israeli authorities typically only permit Palestinian worshippers to stay overnight in the mosque during the final 10 days of Ramadan, and regularly enter to evict attendees staying overnight outside this period.
Sitting on a hilltop sacred to both Jews and Muslims, the spot, known to Jews as Temple Mount, is the holiest site in Judaism, revered as the location of biblical Jewish temples. It is also the third-holiest site in Islam. Conflicting claims over the area have frequently spilled out into violence previously, most recently in an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in 2021 in which both sides claimed victory.
Militant groups in Lebanon and Gaza responded to raids on the al-Asqa mosque with rocket fire last week and Israel launched a wave of airstrikes on Lebanon and Gaza early on the 7th after dozens of rockets struck the north of the country the day before. No group claimed responsibility for the rocket fire from Lebanon, although Israel blamed Hamas, and said that it was investigating the involvement of Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist political party and militant group in Lebanon that also has links to Iran.
Red Sky Alliance is a Cyber Threat Analysis and Intelligence Service organization. For questions, comments or assistance, please contact the office directly at 1-844-492-7225, or feedback@wapacklabs.com
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[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/cyber-attack-leaves-irrigation-systems-in-upper-galilee-dysfunctional/ar-AA19E0Cg
[2] https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/369654
[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/tensions-simmer-jerusalem-israel-responds-rocket-attacks-strikes-targe-rcna78829
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