Israeli Websites Defaced

A London-based Arabic-language newspaper, al-Sharq al-Awsat, reported a claim of responsibility by Islamic Jihad supporters for attacks on Israeli websites. The attacks are apparent protests for the killing by IDF of Hassan Shakura, the former head of the Islamic Jihad's media warfare division.

The article points out this type of attack alone is not a major threat:

"Website defacement of this nature requires only basic programming know-how and usually boils down to changing the main page – a file easy to reconstruct.

"Smaller sites are the ones most vulnerable to defacement, since large sites, databases and electronic commerce website usually have high-level security systems at their disposal.

"A statement by any terror group pointing to a unit dedicated to defacing websites does not necessarily indicate any operational sophistication, since any teenager with basic programming skills can do the same."

Islamic Jihad says hacked Israeli websites