Hundreds of Israeli Websites Hacked in 'Propaganda War'
Attackers deface sites with anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. messages as bombings escalate in Gaza; U.S. Webmasters warned to be vigilant
It didn't take long after Israel's bombing of Gaza began for cyberwarfare to erupt as well: More than 300 Israeli Websites over the past few days have been hacked and defaced with anti-Israeli and anti-U.S. messages in an online propaganda campaign, a security expert says.

Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, warned in his blog that U.S. Websites should be prepared for similar attacks. "In the current situation, the hackers supporting Gaza clearly believe Israel AND the US are culpable. That means American webmasters may wish to be especially vigilant right now," Warner blogged.

The attacks on Israeli sites occurred within a period of 48 hours, in what Warner calls a "Propaganda War."

"As soon as Israel started bombing Gaza we began to look for signs of a cyber response. And we've found it, in the form of more than 300 Israeli websites which have been defaced with anti-Israeli and anti-US messages," Warner blogged.

He says these types of propaganda Website attacks are all about location, not size or prominence of the targeted site. "It only matters WHERE the Website is," he says.

Website propaganda defacements are nothing new. In 2001, Chinese hackers hit tens of thousands of U.S. Websites with messages blaming the United States after a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. Navy plane collided. More recently, Israel's bombing of Lebanon in 2006 was the topic of defacements of U.S. sites.

Warner advises Webmasters to check the content of their sites each day for tampering, to patch regularly, and to use strong passwords and Secure FTP.

Meanwhile, Israel is reportedly using blogs, Twitter, and YouTube to wage a military digital media war of sorts.

Israeli domain registration server hacked

Gaza offensive prompts Islamic group Team Evil to 'hijack' Israeli domain names by hacking into registration server, rerouting users of Ynetnews, Bank Discount to hostile webpage. Original sites were not hacked

An Islamic group based on Morocco hacked into DomainTheNet's registration system server on Friday, effectively "highjacking" various prominent domain names, the likes of ynetnews.com and Bank Discount, and rerouting users to a page featuring anti-Israel messages

DomainTheNet is a multinational registration service provider (RSP), which offers registration and site-hosting services. The attack is believed to be in retaliation to Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.

The attack resulted in some users being referred to the hostile webpage, while others were able to access the original websites, undisturbed. The group did not hack the actual websites.

Islamic Jihad operatives have been able to hack into several Israeli websites, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.

"The electronic surveillance unit of the media warfare division has been able to hack into several Israeli websites and take them over," said a statement by the al-Quds Brigades, quoted by the paper.

According to the report, the operatives were able to plant images of Hassan Shakura, the former head of the Jihad's media warfare division in Gaza, who was killed by the IDF, on the sites; along with other images and Jihad videos.

Hacking "Zionist websites," said the statement "was part of our response to the elimination of the head of the media warfare office in Gaza, as well as a token of our allegiance to the blood of our troops.

The organization promised to "continue the pursuit of all Israeli websites and hack them in response to Israel's crimes in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank."

A Ynet probe has revealed at least two websites hacked by the Islamic Jihad – the Kfar Truman and the "High-Tech Motors Body-Shop" websites.

As announced in the Jihad's statement, both sites were plagued by images of Shakura alive and images of his funeral, as well as threats reading "The shahid commander Hassan Shakura, who was responsibale for media warfare is dead, but he has left many friends behind, ready to carry on his work.

"This is our message to you pigs," continued the threat, "Hassan's missiles will come after you in Sderot and Ashkelon, the retaliation is coming."

Website defacement of this nature requires only basic programming know-how and usually boils down to changing the main page – a file easy to reconstruct.

Smaller sites are the ones most vulnerable to defacement, since large sites, databases and electronic commerce website usually have high-level security systems at their disposal.

A statement by any terror group pointing to a unit dedicated to defacing websites does not necessarily indicate any operational sophistication, since any teenager with basic programming skills can do the same.

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