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Report: Pro-Iran hackers target Israel Airports Authority website

The IAA confirmed that the site had experienced a DDoS attack, but said that its operational systems and networks were unaffected.

Ben-Gurion Airport, Dec. 22, 2021. Credit: Flash90.
Ben-Gurion Airport, Dec. 22, 2021. Credit: Flash90.

A pro-Iran hacking group named Altahrea Team targeted the website of the Israel Airports Authority, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.

The group said its actions were “revenge” for the assassination by the United States on Jan. 3 of Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandes, the commander of the pro-Iranian Popular Mobilization Forces Shi’ite militias in Iraq, according to Maariv.

The IAA confirmed that its website had experienced a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, but stated that there was no harm to its operational systems or infiltration of its networks.

On March 15, multiple Israeli government websites went offline, likely due to a large-scale cyber attack conducted by “Iranian-aligned hackers,” Ynet reported.

The report cited the Israel National Cyber Directorate as saying “the attack was aimed at government and non-security websites, and not at public computer systems ... for now.”

In November, The New York Times said Israel was behind a cyber attack on Iran’s fuel distribution system in the previous month that paralyzed the Islamic Republic’s 4,300 gas stations.

“I’m scared of what’s going to happen now,” Miri Bar-Halpern, a Jewish psychology lecturer at Harvard Medical School, told JNS. “I can already predict the backlash.”
Netanyahu remains 8 seats short of a Knesset majority as Eisenkot-led bloc secures 48 seats and Arab parties 19.
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