The computer system at the Chief Rabbinate's offices in Jerusalem was hacked Thursday. The cyberattack reportedly disrupted the organization's operations for hours. The hackers penetrated the Chief Rabbinate's servers by embedding malware in an email attachment sent to one of its employees. The cyberattack effectively rendered computers throughout the organization useless, including in the offices of Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau and Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. The incident turned out to be a ransomware attack, with the hackers demanding thousands of bitcoins -- digital currency -- to release the computers, but the state decided not to negotiate with the hackers. When the hack was first discovered, all of the Chief Rabbinate's computers were disconnected from power to prevent further damage. Cyber experts and members of the Chief Rabbinate's information technology team were able to successfully restore the files and stressed that sensitive data about members of the public or the services provided by the Chief Rabbinate was not compromised by the hack. Lior Ashkenazi, head of the Cyber and Information Systems Department at the Religious Services Ministry, confirmed the cyberattack originated malware emailed to the Chief Rabbinate. The hack, he said, "was immediately detected by the monitoring system at the Religious Services Ministry, whose staff was immediately called to the Chief Rabbinate to address the issue. As of now, no file has been damaged and the system has a solid backup."
Rabbi Moshe Dagan, director general of the Chief Rabbinate, issued a statement saying, "We are currently in the midst of a tender to upgrade our computer systems, which includes, among others, advanced cybersecurity measures and refreshing security procedures for all workers, to avoid such incidents from recurring."
