The website sabotage on Wednesday is a continuation of the recent chain of cyberattacks between Israeli hackers and hackers from the Arab world, a cycle that began when a Saudi hacker released thousands of Israelis' credit card information three weeks ago. In response to the Saudi's attack, Israeli hackers broke into online databases and revealed the personal information of thousands of citizens of Arab nations and went beyond that to attack Arab government websites. The ping-pong game of cyberattacks has continued, and escalated, ever since. The DDoS, or "Distributed denial of service," attack that took down the websites of the Ha'aretz newspaper, Dan Public Transportation, as well as Sheba and Assuta Medical Centers, is a simple and effective method of sabotage that is difficult to prevent. The attack programs a "bot" which attempts to enter the target site thousands of times in a second. The bot is launched by multiple computers, many of who's users have no idea they have the bot on their system. Every site has a finite number of entries it can handle simultaneously and once the number is reached, the site "falls" and effectively denies service to web surfers. It is possible to identify an unusual spike in entries, isolate the source, and block it before the site crashes. But since these attacks are perpetrated by a large number of computers without any logical connection between them and some of the computers have falsified addresses, it is difficult to stop them all at once without blocking legitimate surfers. A general block on the site would protect it but would prevent some users from entering the site. Among the tools in the defense suit of a website is the ability to block internet traffic from certain geographical locations, like a country that is frequently the point of origin for hostile hackers. The attacks on Wednesday were intended to deny service to users, not break into databases and extract data. In developed countries, where the internet serves as a commercial channel, a denial of service spells a great inconvenience to its residents and service providers. We currently stand before the peak of the attack; anyone who wants to secure their internet presence needs to invest in the necessary defenses to stay on top of this cat and mouse game. Cooperation between database websites regarding their origins of attack could prevent the collapse of the critical websites that turn the wheel of the Israeli economy and Israeli society.
