© Getty ImagesIsrael’s cyber protection agency declared a state of emergency following what officials are calling the biggest cyber attack on Israel in its history.
Israel's cyber protection agency declared a state of emergency Monday as the country's government websites went down in an apparent online attack.
A source with Israel's defense forces said the cyber attack was the largest ever carried out against Israel, according to the newspaper Haaretz.The cyber assault took down websites for the nation's interior, health, justice and welfare ministries, as well as that of the prime minister's office. All are pages on Israel's gov.il domain.
As of Monday night Jerusalem time, some access had reportedly been restored.
Israeli officials suspected the attack was the work of another country but told Haaretz they could not yet determine who was responsible.Government officials said they were checking with Israeli power and water companies to see if they had been affected, though Israel's utility websites appeared to be functioning normally.
Comment: More from
Haaretz:
A number of Israeli government websites went down on Monday in an apparent cyberattack. The Israeli cyber authority confirmed the attack was a DDos (Digital-denial of service) attack that had blocked access to government websites, and that all websites were back online.
The websites of the interior, health, justice and welfare ministries had been taken offline, as was that of the Prime Minister's Office.
Earlier on Monday, a senior defense official confirmed to Haaretz that a massive cyberattack was carried out Monday evening against Israeli government websites, and cybersecurity industry sources said that the operation was a wide-scale distributed denial of service (DDos) attack.
A defense establishment source claims that this was the largest-ever cyberattack carried out against Israel. They believe that a state actor or large organization carried out the attack, but cannot yet determine who is behind it.
The defense establishment and the National Cyber Directorate have declared a state of emergency in order to study the extent of the damage, while checking strategic Israeli websites and government infrastructure, such as Israel's electric and water companies, to see whether they were also attacked.
The defense establishment claims that the attack hit websites using the .GOV.IL domain, which is used for all government websites save for defense-related ones. Another website that uses this domain is the government database. Despite this, some of the websites can still be accessed via smartphone.
Following the attack, Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel convened a meeting with officials at the Communications Ministry. Telecommunications companies have been working to get the downed websites back online; service is being restored gradually.
The National Cyber Directorate said: "In the past few hours, a denial of service 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. As of now, all of the websites are operational."
Comment: More from Haaretz: