14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier today, we reported that the Islamic Cyber Resistance Group claimed to have breached the systems of the Israel Airports Authority. However, an Israeli expert says they haven’t hacked anything.
Tal Pavel, a lecturer at Netanya Academic College and director of the MiddleEastNet website, has told the Times of Israel that this is just another example of “psychological warfare” conducted by Iran.
He believes that the hackers, who posted the files they allegedly stole from the IAA on the website Wikileak.ir, likely obtained the IAA training manual from someone in Israel. However, the information that’s in it is publicly available on the Internet.
“Anytime this group can put together a plausible story they do,” Pavel explained.
“Anti-Israel groups feel better about themselves, and their patron governments and organizations are impressed, so they keep the funding up. Meanwhile, impressionable Israelis or potential tourists to Israel read these claims, so the hackers figure it may have an effect on some of them,” he added.
He says that all of the Islamic Cyber Resistance Group’s claims are false, including the fact that they’ve hacked the system of the Israeli Defense Force, Israel’s banking networks, and Saudi Arabia’s aviation systems.
This isn’t the first time when Iran is said to be behind what appears to be a hacktivist group. In 2012 and 2013, a group called Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters launched DDOS attacks against US banks for several months. US officials said the group was just a front used by Iran.
Nothing has been heard of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters over the past months. Softpedia has attempted to contact them, but they haven’t responded to our inquiries. At the time when they launched their attacks, they claimed that their goal was to get YouTube to remove the controversial Innocence of Muslims movie.