Financial cos briefed on thwarting imminent Iranian cyberattack

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The Bank of Israel held a meeting yesterday to explain to financial service companies how to ward off the planned cyberattack by Iran's Anonymous for Justice group.

In recent weeks, there have been several cyberattacks against Israeli organizations, some of which were carried out while others were prevented. Because of this, the Israel National Cyber Directorate conducts situation assessments with relevant companies and bodies in the economy to raise awareness around the issue and provide guidelines to help deal with the situation. The Bank of Israel said it held a situation assessment with the National Cyber Directorate yesterday, attended by Israeli banks, credit card companies and other financial services companies.

At the meeting, they reviewed the recent attacks in Israel on Shva (Automatic Bank Services Ltd.), and Credit Guard, so that financial institutions could learn from what took place. Raising awareness is important so that institutions can become familiar with the different practices and understand what they can do. At the meeting, it was explained that attackers find weak points and use them to harm the company. Therefore, the recommendation was to look for these points and deal with them.

According to sources familiar with the details of the meeting, it dealt with information about an Iranian threat to attack in the coming days. There is no target date, but Israeli officials believe the attack will most likely be mounted on Friday. At the meeting, various scenarios emerged as to what the attack might look like, and there was an assessment that it was once again a DDoS attack against financial systems, such as clearing credit cards. The cybersecurity system and other entities will work in the coming days to try to thwart or reduce the potential for damage.

Based on intelligence and publications by cybersecurity companies that investigated the recent attacks, the meeting was also told that the attackers' successes in recent events were mainly against organizations that are not fully protected using dedicated AntiDDos services.

Ahead of a further attack

Sources in the market explain that there are attempted cyberattacks every day, which requires a special meeting of all the relevant bodies in the economy, including private companies that do not receive instructions on a regular basis, in order for them to take immediate actions. Due to the fact that it is impossible to know who will be attacked and when, and due to the fact that Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks occur all the time, the National Cyber Directorate is broadly prepared and "puts up walls" in a variety of places.

Anonymous for Justice, a group associated with Iranian intelligence, was behind the cyberattack against payment solutions company HYP and Credit Guard. The same group is now threatening that in 72 hours there will be another cyberattack. The context is particularly important - the group's aim is to panic Israelis and create pressure, and it benefits from the fact that the Israelis are acting out of negative motivation. In a tweet on X, the group wrote, "72 hours. Still you have time to save your capital. The risk of not paying attention to our warnings can come at the cost of destroying your life."

The National Cyber Directorate claims that it would have held this meeting regardless of this message from the Iranians.

The Bank of Israel stated in response, "The Bank of Israel is in regular contact, all the time and even these days, with the banking system, the National Cyber Directorate and other relevant entities for the purpose of preparing and ensuring the continuity of various services to customers in accordance with developments."

Despite the threats, no rush to withdraw money from the bank

These preparations follow an increase in DDoS attacks in the last month against Israeli websites, the most recent of which was against the payment and clearing companies HYP and Credit Guard. In the attack, orders overloaded on the company's servers meaning that for six hours it was not possible to carry out credit card transactions, because clearing communications collapsed. About two weeks ago, a similar incident also happened to Shva, which provides communications between the clearing bodies when charging credit cards. At that time, the company reported disruptions that prevented clearing transactions.

There is no need to panic and withdraw money from banks. The DDoS cyberattack being prepared is designed to overload and crash servers. These are simple attacks that crash the system for a limited period of time, and necessary defenses are in place, the attacks are avoided or dramatically reduced. Due to the fact that this is not a cyber hack through which the attacker can extract information or money, market sources explain that the hackers' call to withdraw money from bank accounts is simply designed to sow fear and panic.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 13, 2024.

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