JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hackers in a coordinated cyber attack on Israel briefly brought down the websites of the country’s postal service and Education Ministry.
The international hacking group Anonymous and its followers also published online a list of phone numbers, emails and passwords of senior Israeli officials, Ynet reported. A few private Israeli websites also have been brought down.
Anonymous and others had announced that Monday would be “Operation Israel,” or “OpIsrael,” a day of targeting Israeli websites in retaliation for Israel’s “assault on the people of Gaza.”
“On April 7, 2014, we call upon our brothers and sisters to hack, deface, hijack, database leak, admin takeover, and DNS terminate the Israeli Cyberspace by any means necessary,” Anonymous said in a message posted on YouTube. “We will not stop until the police state becomes a free state and Palestine is free.”
The message said Israel must “cease and desist any further military action and illegal settlements or the consequences will become worse with each passing hour.”
Exactly one year ago, Anonymous had launched an identical attack against Israel, taking down dozens of websites and publishing online a list of hundreds of Israeli email addresses and credit card numbers.
