Pierluigi Paganini May 21, 2020

Thousands of Israeli websites have been defaced earlier today, hackers published an anti-Israeli message on their homepage and attempted to implant malicious code.

A massive hacking campaign defaced thousands of Israeli websites, attackers published an anti-Israeli message on their homepage and attempted to inject a malware seeking permission to access visitors’ webcams.

“Be ready for a big surprise” “The countdown of Israel destruction has begun since a long time ago,” reads the message published in in Hebrew and English on the defaced Israeli websites.

A video published by the hackers shows explosions in Tel Aviv and a battered and bloodied Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swimming away from a burning city.

The hackers also added a link on some websites, asking users to click on the link and activate their camera

The list of hacked websites belong to local municipalities, several NGOs, popular restaurant chains, and a left-wing Member of parliament.

The attacks were carried out by a group calling itself the “Hackers of Saviour” most of the hacked websites were hosted on the Israeli WordPress hosting service uPress. The hacker group’s YouTube channel describes the crew as collective seeking on avenging Israel’s policy on the Palestinian situation.

“Early this morning we detected a widespread cyber attack against many websites stored on our servers. It is a case of a malicious and far-ranging attack carried out by anti-Israel (Iranian) sources. We detected a weakness in a WordPress add on that enabled the hack and are working closely with the National Cyber Bureau to research the breach and fix the affected sites.” reads a statement from the company sent to Ynet News.

The hosting provider confirmed the attack and revealed that the hackers exploited a vulnerability in a WordPress plugin to compromise the Israeli websites. Below the message published by the company on Facebook:

The company said it was working with Israeli authorities to investigate the hack. uPress also took down all defaced websites and pulled the file hackers were exploiting. The company is working to restore all the defaced websites.

“The Israel National Cyber Bureau, the government agency tasked with protecting Israel from hacking attacks confirmed that “a host of Israeli websites were hacked in the morning hours in a suspected Iranian cyber-attack.”” reported the website Calcalistech.

“The matter is being handled by the Bureau. We recommend users refrain from pressing any links on compromised sites,”.

The hosting provider reported the incident to the authorities that launched an investigation into the attacks.

The Israeli National Cyber-Directorate (INCD), the Israeli cyber-security agency, warned users against visiting and interacting with the hacked websites.

Israeli press outlets blame Iranian hackers for the attacks, but at the time there is no concrete evidence to support this attribution.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Israeli websites, hacking)

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