CDR: infowar in palestine

[anonymous at openpgp.net]

Israeli government, army
                 Web sites crash after hostile
                 hits

                 JERUSALEM (AP) -- Several official Israeli Web sites crashed
                 after being flooded by thousands of simultaneous hostile hits in
                 a digital onslaught by Islamic groups abroad, officials said
                 Thursday. 

                 The cyber attack is the most intense since Israels government
                 launched its Internet sites several years ago. It opens a new
                 front in Israels confrontation with the Arab world. Palestinian
                 rioters have been clashing with Israeli forces for almost a
                 month. At a weekend summit, Islamic countries condemned
                 Israel and called for cutting relations with the Jewish state. 

                 Both sides are emphasizing the public relations aspect of their
                 conflict. Interest in the Israeli government Web sites has
                 increased noticeably since the riots began Sept. 28, officials
                 said. The targeted sites provide information about the conflict
                 from an official Israeli point of view. 

                 The first shot in the cyberwar was apparently fired by some
                 Israeli teenagers, who bragged to a local newspaper last week
                 that they had succeeded in sabotaging a Web site of the
                 Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. 

                 Return fire was not long in coming. Uri Noy, who oversees the
                 Foreign Ministry Web site, said that several extremist Islamic
                 web sites called on their users to attack Israeli sites, providing
                 them access to computer programs that allow users to flood
                 sites with huge amounts of electronic mail, jamming them. 

                 First to feel the effects was the official site of the Israeli Prime
                 Ministers office. After that site was restored, the Foreign
                 Ministrys Web site was overwhelmed by incoming mail and
                 knocked off the web. Almost two days after the attack began,
                 the site had still not been restored. 

                 The Israeli army repaired its information Web site, and to
                 increase security, switched from a local server to one connected
                 to the U.S. communications giant ATT, the military said. 

                 The Web site of the Knesset, Israels parliament, was the target
                 of a different king of cyber attack. Hackers broke into the site
                 and tampered with its files, Knesset spokesman Giora Pordes
                 said. He said the attack may have come from Saudi Arabia. 

                 "You cannot be perfectly safe. Any system can be infiltrated,"
                 Miki Buzaglo, an Israeli who took credit for first sabotaging the
                 Hezbollah site, said on Israel TV. "There is a war of brains
                 going on here." 

                 An Israeli Internet service provider which hosted the three
                 targeted sites scrambled to make repairs Thursday. 

                 Israeli officials said no damage was done to sensitive computer
                 systems used by the army and the government, since they are
                 insulated from the Internet. 

                 Noy denounced the attacks. "We see the sabotaging of our
                 Web site as equivalent to the burning of books," he said. He
                 said the bombardment of the site continued even as efforts
                 were made to restore it. 

                 "Its too bad that the Internet has become another
                 battleground," said member of parliament Michael Eitan, the
                 Knesset Internet expert. "We need to have a cease-fire on the
                 Web."

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/26/israel.cyberwar.ap/index.html