Israel Sees Massive Increase in Reported Hacking Attempts After October 7

Israel saw a “significant” increase in reports of cyber incidents, such as hacking attempts, in 2023 as compared to 2022. Israel’s National Cyber Directorate published its report that shows a jump of 43% in the number of reports it received in 2023, with a sharp increase coming after the start of the Iron Swords war against the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza which was sparked by Hamas’ October 7 massacre, comprising 61% of all such reports made in 2023.

This news should come as little surprise.

It has been widely reported over the past few years that Iranian government has been promoting hacking attacks against Israel and western countries, aimed at both government agencies and private companies. Iranian proxies were involved in the October 7 attack and Iranian backed terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houtis in Yemen have been launching rockets at Israeli territory since the start of the war.

And the world has been on the alert for more hacking attacks in recent months.

The report also found 800 cyber incidents with the “potential for significant damage” were prevented or contained in the period between October 7 and December 31, 2023. The report detailed the main trends and attacks during the war and also presents the active defense operations of the array, data on the state of the cyber industry, human capital and technological projects.

According to the National Cyber Directorate, out of the 13,040 reports from organizations and citizens made in 2023, about 68% were received during the “Iron Swords” war. 41% of the reports in 2023 dealt with hacking into social networks and WhatsApp accounts (2.5 times compared to last year), about 25% dealt with attempts Phishing, and 13% in the penetration of the computer systems. The rest of the reports dealt with weaknesses in the computer system (9%), damage (3%) damage to functional continuity such as denial of service attacks (2%) and GPS disruptions (2%).

A significant part of the report is dedicated to the war period, during which there was an increase in cyber attacks that went from focusing on influencing consciousness and stealing information to attacks aimed at causing disruption and damage. According to the report, as the war progressed, more attack groups operating on behalf of Iran and Hezbollah were identified. The report also indicates the organization’s activities during this period, including activities to reduce weak points in hospital systems and control systems in the field of energy and water, increasing resilience in approximately 160 local authorities and bodies that make up the supply chain, legislating a curfew, investigating crypto wallets, and more.

“From the analysis of the sectors in which the most attacks or attempts were recorded, it appears that companies that provide digital services to organizations were a preferred target for attacks in the past year, due to their ability to reach many organizations at the same time,” said the Directorate. “Other key sectors targeted by the attackers were the communications, government, financial and local government sectors.” a

The report detailed a number of significant flagship projects of the array in collaboration with the technology giants Google, Microsoft and Amazon, to establish defense systems, information sharing and monitoring attacks at the national level.

The report’s data show that as part of an activity to actively protect the economy. The Directorate removed more than 2,500 malicious phishing infrastructures, handled almost a thousand reports on specific security weaknesses in organizations, signed 72 CVEs (transverse weakness in the software), and issued more than 367 warnings to the economy.

In addition to this, the report provides a snapshot of the Israeli cyber industry and notes that despite the significant decrease in investments in many sectors in the high-tech field that has occurred in the last two years in Israel and in the world, relatively speaking, the decrease in investments in cyber companies was lower. Thus, 8 out of 10 “exits” The largest (over $100 million) of Israeli companies this year were in the cyber field, as well as the scope of exits in the cyber field – approximately $2.8 billion – making up 80% of all exits in Israeli high-tech for this year.

According to the head of the National Cyber Directorate Gabi Portnoy, “in 2023 there was a step up in the ability to protect the Israeli economy as part of the change in the concept of the array and rapid operations for lateral defense during the war. The year 2024 will be marked by the continuation of fighting and readiness to expand it against additional arenas, alongside an expected improvement in cyber capabilities and readiness of our enemy to carry out attacks that will cause damage to the civilian home front.”