Specialists expected it: unsurprisingly, the terrorist attack carried out by Hamas in Israel ten days ago was accompanied by computer replicas from hacktivist groups aimed at further destabilizing Israelis in a state of shock. One of them seems to have particularly achieved its goal.
Because if the impact of traditional denial of service attacks – an Israeli media outlet, the Jerusalem Postfor example, was targeted – should be put into perspective, with fairly harmless operations, according to Gil Shwed, the CEO and founder of Check Point Technologies, interviewed by Capital, the attack against the Red Alert application was particularly destabilizing.
Misused application
This Israeli application for reporting rocket fire intended to allow residents to take shelter in time was in fact hijacked by the group AnonGhost. These pro-Palestinian hacktivists, who appeared 15 years ago and who distinguished themselves in 2015 in the defacement attacks targeting France, even managed to send messages signaling an upcoming nuclear attack. Ideal for sowing panic.
According to cybersecurity company Group-IB, hacktivists managed to exploit a vulnerability in the application, allowing them to intercept requests and send false information using Python scripts. The problems of Red Alert, immediately removed from the Android application store, did not stop there.
As Cloudflare reports, a new malicious website briefly attempted to impersonate the application. This malicious version of the app imitated Red Alert while simultaneously collecting sensitive data, such as call logs, text messages, and contacts. It is unknown whether this was a villainous attempt or linked to the conflict.
Towards retaliation?
These misappropriations of Red Alert illustrate the interest of hacktivist groups in this new front. According to The Register, around fifteen groups of this type or cybercriminals, such as Anonymous Soudan or Killnet, have announced that they want to invite themselves into operations, for example by disrupting videoconferences via Zoom. However, these groups of hacktivists are attacking to a particularly tough piece. Israel is renowned for being one of the most cutting-edge digital countries in the world.
Causing some to fear the start of a cyber conflagration. “If a major regional power is involved in Hamas’s action, and has helped it, we must expect spectacular cyber retaliatory actions on the part of Israel in the coming weeks,” reports Le Point. cybersecurity expert Guy-Philippe Goldstein. Digital retaliation or not: Israel launched an air attack four years ago against a building housing Hamas cyber-activists, a first.