An anonymous group of anti-Israel hackers has announced plans for a new cyber-assault. The mass hacking attempt has been scheduled for September 11.
The same group previously attempted a mass online attack in April 2013. The only noticeable effect was a several-second delay in access to one government site; other than that, all Israeli government sites ran as usual.
A previous attack did more damage, temporarily affecting hundreds of Israeli civilian sites.
The hackers have released a video with their latest threats. The video includes a call to “Moroccan hackers and all Muslims [sic] hackers” to join in the attack.
The video taunts, “There is no Israel in this map. No one recognize you, because it is Palestine.” It then switches to footage of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Earlier this year the hacker group’s #OpIsrael campaigns led to a counter-campaign, dubbed #OpIslam, targeting anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist websites.
Experts have said that Israel faces roughly 100,000 cyber attacks on an average day. In times of war, the average number of daily attacks is roughly one million.
Israeli hi-tech firms have developed several new technologies for fighting cyber threats. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu dedicated a new national cyber center, one of the goals of which will be to boost research and development.