Israeli government websites crash in massive cyberattack
Israel's cyber protection agency declared a state of emergency on Monday as government websites went down in an apparent online attack.
The websites of the interior, health, justice, and welfare ministries and the prime minister's office were taken offline, the National Cyber Directorate said on Twitter.
"In the past few hours, a denial of service (DDoS) attack against a communications provider was identified. As a result, access to a number of websites, among them government websites, was blocked for a short time," the directorate said.
It added that "as of now, all of the websites are operational".
A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious hacking attempt that targets a server or network by overwhelming it with a flood of internet traffic.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that checks were being carried out on strategic Israeli websites and government infrastructure, including Israel's electric and water companies to see if they were also attacked.
A defence source told Haaretz that a state actor or large organisation carried out the attack, but it could not yet determine who was behind it.
Iran's semi-official news outlet IRNA reported earlier on Monday that Iranian authorities reportedly foiled an Israeli operation aimed at sabotaging the advanced centrifuges at a nuclear facility in Fordow, just north of the city of Qom.
Iran has blamed Israel for a number of similar cyberattacks on Iranian sites. Washington and other western powers have meanwhile accused Iran of trying to disrupt and break into their networks.
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