Jerusalem: There has been a cyberattack on many government websites in Israel. According to the government statement, several government websites of Israel crashed. These include the sites of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of the Interior, Justice, and Welfare.
Israel’s Haretz newspaper gave this information in its report on Tuesday. It is being seen as the biggest cyber-attack ever against Israel. On the other hand, Israel’s National Cyber Directorate said in a statement that all these websites have now started again.
Israel’s cyber authority said the attack was a digital-denial of service (DDoS) attack. Through this, access to the government website was blocked. None of the sites were accessible.
A senior defense official told Haretz newspaper that there was a massive cyber attack on Monday evening. It is believed that an actor or big organization is responsible for this attack.
The Defense Establishment and the National Cyber Directorate have now declared a state of emergency to study the damage. It is also being investigated whether strategic Israeli websites and government infrastructures, such as Israel’s electricity and water supply companies, have also been attacked.
The defense establishment also said that the attack affected websites using the GOV.IL domain, which is used for all government websites except defense-related websites. Another website that uses this domain is the government database. Some websites can still be accessed through a smartphone.
Israel’s Minister of Communications Yoaz Handel called a meeting with officials from the Ministry of Communications in the wake of the attack and telecom companies are working to restore the websites that were disrupted. Service is being restored gradually.
