Israeli government websites temporarily knocked offline by ‘massive’ cyber-attack

DDoS assault blamed on Iran, local media reports

A “massive” cyber-attack knocked several Israeli government websites offline last night (March 14).

The incident was confirmed online by the Israel National Cyber Directorate, which said that a DDoS attack denied access to services “for a short time”.

“In the past few hours, a DDoS attack against a communications provider was identified.

“As a result, access to several websites, among them government websites, was denied for a short time. As of now, all of the websites have returned to normal activity,” the tweet reads.

Massive attack

Unconfirmed reports allege that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has claimed responsibility for what’s being labeled as a “massive” cyber-attack.

Local media also quoted Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel as stating that sites with gov.il extensions were unable to be reached for at least an hour. All sites are now reported to be back online.

The Daily Swig has reached out to Israeli Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IL) for more information and will update this article as and when more information comes to hand.

Jessica Haworth-Elsayed

@JesscaHaworth