Middle East Cyberwar Heats Up

Arab, Israeli Hackers Trade Attacks
Middle East Cyberwar Heats Up
A group of Saudi Arabian hackers, identified as "Nightmare," conducted distributed denial-of-service attacks Jan. 16 against the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and EL AL, Israel's national airline carrier, according to news reports.

See Also: Open Banking, PSD2, and The Transformation of Financial Services

The Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported that the incident is the latest in what has been called a "Middle East cybewar" between Arab and Jewish hackers.

As of 8 p.m. EST Jan. 17, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange website continued to be down, with a message saying, "Please try again later. The site is too busy right now."

Israel Retaliates

In a message posted on Pastebin, the Israeli hacking group called "IDF-Team" says it has retaliated, going after and disrupting the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange website as well as the Saudi government's stock exchange site, both of which were down as of 8 p.m. EST on Jan. 17.

The IDF-Team writes in its message, "If the lame attacks from Saudi Arabia will continue, we will move to the next level which will disable these sites longer."

The attack against the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and EL AL, as well as three unnamed Israeli banks, came a few days after the group called "Israel Defenders" published credit card details of hundreds of Saudis, the Telegraph reports.


About the Author

Jeffrey Roman

Jeffrey Roman

News Writer, ISMG

Roman is the former News Writer for Information Security Media Group. Having worked for multiple publications at The College of New Jersey, including the College's newspaper "The Signal" and alumni magazine, Roman has experience in journalism, copy editing and communications.




Around the Network

Our website uses cookies. Cookies enable us to provide the best experience possible and help us understand how visitors use our website. By browsing inforisktoday.com, you agree to our use of cookies.