Fergie's Tech Blog

Israel: Looking for a Few Good Cybermen?

Kevin Coleman writes on DefenseTech.org:

A fairly active cyber militia within Israel wants you! These cyber activists (Help Israel Win) are actively recruiting pro-Israeli computer users to aide in their cyber attacks against Hamas websites. These efforts appear to date back to the very early days of the latest conflict in Gaza. The militia developed and is distributing a cyber weapon called "Patriot" that once installed turns the volunteer computer to be remotely controlled and used in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against targeted Hamas websites.

As of late last week, the cyber militia said there were about 8,000 downloads of the cyber weapon. This is not just a hack package. The software includes the ability to remotely update the cyber weapon as well as an uninstaller that will remove the program once the conflict has ended.

This is just one aspect of the growing cyber war. The DDoS coupled with a significant propaganda (PSYOPS) offensive has continued to intensify in the Israel/Gaza conflict. PSYOPS is commonly used to induce and/or reinforce attitudes and behaviors favorable to the desired objectives of those launching the psychological operations. There have been reports that the Israeli military is also using the good old phone system in their PSYOPS initiatives. There have been multiple reports that Palestinians have been receiving phone calls from the Israeli army warning them against dealing with or assisting Hamas.

posted by Fergie @ 1/12/2009 12:04:00 PM