International hacker group Anonymous threatened to attack Israel's computer grid on Friday. In a series of English, Arabic and German videos posted on social media over the past few weeks, the group said "all Israeli government websites, servers and databases and so on" could come under attack on April 7 as part of its annual "OpIsrael" attack, also known as "OpIsrahell." This is the fifth consecutive year in which Anonymous has launched an anti-Israel operation. "Israel, we will disconnect you from the cyber world," the group declared in one of its YouTube videos. Another video called on "all hacktivists, anonymous and anonymous subgroups to join" the cyberattack on Israel. Ahead of the potential assault, cybersecurity company Radware issued a list of Anonymous' potential targets, which includes government websites, banks, universities, media outlets and prominent companies. Over the past few weeks, hackers released propaganda, coordinated plans through a variety of social media channels and even began testing their capabilities, breaching a handful of small business sites. At the same time, Radware observed chatter by Israeli hackers on social media, suggesting they were devising ways to counter Anonymous' operation, foil cyberattacks and expose the hackers. Cybersecurity company Celestya, which developed the cyberattack simulator Q-Log, also observed preparations by Anonymous for the attack in the form of event pages on social media, where hundreds of individuals have confirmed their participation in the cyberattack. Various methods that could be used to target Israeli sites are being discussed on these pages, specifically distributed denial-of-service attacks, known as DDoS, meant to corrupt data, and distributing target lists with aim of maximize the cyberattacks' impact by concentrating hackers' efforts, the company said. While Anonymous' stated goal is to "disconnect" Israel from the cybersphere, hackers' successes have so far amounted to disrupting the websites of small businesses, stealing passwords and sending threatening text messages to mobile phones, which reflects their poor capabilities. This, together with the fact that Israeli groups are well-prepared to counter daily cyberattacks have made the local cyber community skeptical as to the nature of the attack these hackers could actually launch against Israel's computer grid. Nevertheless, Radware Security Product Marketing Director Shira Sagiv cautioned that "in light of the flourishing exchange of cyber tools on the darknet and the increasing number of smart devices, which are exposed to malware, software leaks and coordinated attacks, there is no guarantee Anonymous will not pull a rabbit out of its hat."
