As always, a lot of the hacks and data leaks are fake

Apr 7, 2014 11:56 GMT  ·  By

Today, April 7, hacktivists from several countries have launched a new campaign against Israel. Hundreds of websites have been targeted in the pro-Palestine campaign dubbed Operation Israel (OpIsrael).

Cyberattacks of all types have been launched. Some websites have been disrupted by distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks, some have been defaced, while from others the attackers have leaked information.

The DDOS attacks have mainly been targeted at the websites of government agencies and financial institutions – in general, sites that are not too easy to breach. A large number of Israeli commercial websites have been defaced and data has been leaked from their databases.

The hackers, most of which affiliated with the Anonymous movement, announced their plans months ago.

As a result, the Israeli government has taken steps to protect computer systems against attacks, the Times of Israel reported. Some government websites have been shut down and the public has been warned not to open suspicious emails since some of the hackers target citizens and businesses, not just government entities.

This is not the first time hacktivists launch OpIsrael. Hundreds of websites were targeted in the past years in similar operations, but Israeli officials have always denied that the attacks caused any real damage.

So let’s take a look at this year’s campaign. Has it caused any damage?

As with most hacktivist operations, OpIsrael has attracted the attention of news organizations from all over the world. However, when it comes to actual hacking, not much has been accomplished.

Some high-profile websites have been disrupted briefly with DDOS attacks. Most of the breached and defaced websites belong to small businesses whose owners probably haven’t invested in security.

As with previous OpIsrael attacks, there are a lot of fake hacks. Many of the hackers taking part in the operation are publishing old data and claiming to have leaked it from various companies and organizations. In fact, most of the info we’ve analyzed is either old, or highly suspicious.

For instance, one hacking group claimed to have leaked the credit cards of hundreds of Israeli citizens. However, the exact same data was leaked back in September 2013.

Furthermore, it appears to belong to users from all around the world (mainly Latin America), not just from Israel, which likely means that it was stolen with the aid of malware or through a phishing scheme, not from a company’s databases.

Tomorrow, or in the upcoming days, the hackers behind OpIsrael will probably say that the operation has been a success, while Israeli officials will deny everything.