Hackers target Israeli site Groupon over Gaza op

By JPOST.COM STAFF  The Jerusalem Post

11/19/2012 16:22

Muslim extremists claiming to be from Pakistan warn against Israeli soldiers from entering Gaza in online attack.

Photo: Screenshot
 
Hackers targeted the website of Israeli company Groupon Monday afternoon in response to the IDF's Pillar of Defense operation in Gaza.

The hackers, who claimed to be working from Pakistan under the name "Pakistani Leets," wrote a number of expletives on the homepage of the site, including one line that called Israelis "mentally retarded people because you do not learn from your mistakes, and from mistakes of those who preceded you of your pigs!"

The message written on the site in green and red text, using broken English, warned against Israeli soldiers from entering Gaza.

The latest successful hacking attempt came after the government said on Sunday more than 44 million hacking attempts have been made on Israeli government web sites since Wednesday when Israel began its Gaza air strikes.

Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Sunday just one hacking attempt was successful on a site he did not want to name, but it was up and running after 10 minutes of downtime.

Late Friday night, hacker collective Anonymous launched a wide-scale attack, named #OpIsrael on hundreds of Israeli websites in protest of the operation.



The attacks ranged from prominent targets such as the Foreign Ministry to tourism companies and locksmiths.

One of the most high-profile targets of the attack was the Foreign Ministry’s international development program, Mashav. In an announcement on Twitter, Anonymous claimed to have tampered with the website’s internal database.

Likud MK Danny Danon’s website was shut down by Kuwaiti hackers last Thursday, immediately after he announced a petition to cut off electricity in Gaza.

Danon called for Israel to stop providing Gaza with electricity on Thursday, saying over 5,000 people signed a petition on his website, which he sent to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

“Hamas owes NIS 103 million to the State of Israel for electricity, and instead of paying back the debt, they shoot missiles on Ashkelon,” he said. “It cannot be that Hamas can shoot at the power plant that provides them with electricity.”

Minutes after the Likud MK’s announcement, his website was hacked.

Michael Omer-Man contributed to this report.