Financial cos briefed on thwarting imminent Iranian cyberattack

In recent weeks, several cyber attacks have occurred against Israeli organizations, some of which were carried out and others were prevented. For this reason, the Israeli National Internet Directorate is conducting assessments of the situation with companies and relevant bodies in the economy to raise awareness about the issue and provide guidelines to help deal with the situation. The Bank of Israel said that it conducted an assessment of the situation with the National Cyber ​​Directorate yesterday, in the presence of Israeli banks, credit card companies and other financial services companies.

During the meeting, the recent attacks in Israel on Shva (Automatic Bank Services Ltd.) and Credit Guard were reviewed, so that financial institutions can learn from what happened. Raising awareness is important so that organizations can learn about different practices and understand what they can do. At the meeting, it was explained that attackers find vulnerabilities and use them to harm the company. Therefore, the recommendation was to search for these points and deal with them.

According to sources familiar with the details of the meeting, it discussed information about an Iranian threat to launch an attack in the coming days. There is no target date, but Israeli officials believe the attack is likely to be carried out on Friday. At the meeting, different scenarios emerged about what the attack might look like, and there was an assessment that it was again a DDoS attack against financial systems, such as credit card clearinghouses. The cybersecurity system and others will work in the coming days to try to thwart or reduce the potential for harm.

Based on intelligence and publications from cybersecurity companies investigating recent attacks, the meeting was also told that attackers’ successes in recent incidents have been primarily against organizations that are not fully protected using dedicated AntiDDos services.

Before another attack

Market sources explain that there are attempted cyber attacks every day, which requires a special meeting of all relevant parties in the economy, including private companies that do not receive instructions on a regular basis, so that they can take immediate action. Since it is impossible to know who will be attacked when, and since denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks happen all the time, the National Cyber ​​Directorate prepares extensively and “puts up walls” in a variety of places.

Anonymous for Justice, a group linked to Iranian intelligence, was behind the cyberattack against payment solutions company HYP and Credit Guard. The same group is now threatening that within 72 hours there will be another cyber attack. Context is particularly important – the group’s goal is to create panic among Israelis and create pressure, and it capitalizes on the fact that Israelis are acting out of negative motives. In a tweet on X, the group wrote: “72 hours. You still have time to save your capital. The risk of not heeding our warnings could come at the cost of ruining your life.”

The National Cyber ​​Directorate claims that it would have held this meeting regardless of this message from the Iranians.

In response, the Bank of Israel stated that “the Bank of Israel is in regular contact, all the time and up to these days, with the banking system, the National Cyber ​​Directorate and other relevant entities for the purpose of preparing and ensuring the continuity of various operations.” Providing services to customers in line with developments.”

Despite the threats, there is no rush to withdraw money from the bank

These preparations come in the wake of an increase in DDoS attacks last month against Israeli websites, the most recent of which was against the payment and clearing companies HYP and Credit Guard. In the attack, orders were overloaded on the company’s servers, meaning that credit card transactions could not be executed for six hours, due to a breakdown in clearing connections. About two weeks ago, a similar incident also happened to Shva, which provides communications between clearing bodies when charging credit cards. At the time, the company reported disruptions that prevented transactions from clearing.

There is no need to panic and withdraw money from banks. A DDoS cyberattack is designed to overload and crash servers. These are simple attacks that cause the system to crash for a limited period of time, and with the necessary defenses in place, the attacks are avoided or greatly reduced. Since this is not a cyber breach through which an attacker can extract information or money, market sources explain that the hackers’ call to withdraw money from bank accounts is simply aimed at instilling fear and panic.

Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on November 13, 2024.

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