Due to a cyberattack, the Health Ministry website of Israel was inaccessible for users outside the country according to the Ministry on Sunday.
Although the site was working fine for the local Israelis, the same cannot be said for foreigners who were unable to access it, according to the statement issued by the Ministry.
The statement also said that the Ministry was looking into the matter along with the e-Government unit, a state organization that’s responsible for looking after internet services of government websites.
The Health Ministry website offers a variety of information on a wide range of subjects specifically related to health rules and regulations in the English language. Such information is necessary for people visiting the country during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to reports by Hebrew media, a certain group of pro-Iranian hackers called the Altahrea Team based in Iraq, has claimed responsibility for the attack.
On its Telegram, the group announced how the attack was carried out in response to the numerous bombings by Israel on Gaza and a bunch of other attacks.
The Altahrea Team’s purported grievances included the sanctions imposed on Iran because of which medicines and COVID-19 vaccinations are blocked subjecting thousands to die. They also voiced their support for Ukraine as the country continues to fight back against its invader Russia.
“Now you are in our sights,” the group wrote.
Over the weekend, the Gaza Strip was hit twice in response to rocket fire at the Israeli communities from the Palestinian enclave.
Just last week, the same cybergroup claimed responsibility for attacking the Jerusalem municipality website and Rafael defense company on Thursday. They also claimed an attack on Monday on the Tel Aviv municipality website was carried out by them.
The Health Ministry of Israel did not dive deeper into the details regarding the incident apart from the fact that last week’s attacks were all Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). It is a typical cyberattack in which the website servers are overloaded by multiple simultaneous requests for access. However, no data theft is involved.
In a statement, the Israel Internet Association said that since countering DDoS attacks involve shutting down systems and blocking international access to the website, it could be one of the reasons why it was only available to the locals for a while.
A number of cyberattacks have been carried out on Israel in recent years, the most notable one being the cyberattack on Israel’s water infrastructure in 2020.
