bBy Flora Graham/bbr /BBC Newsbr /pimg src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45373000/jpg/_45373187_israel_palestine_flag.jpg" align="left" width="226" height="170" alt="Israel Palastine flag" border="0" vspace="4" hspace="4"p class="first"bA propaganda war between supporters of Israel and Palestine is being waged on the internet./bpActivists have turned to defacing websites, taking over computers, and shutting down Facebook groups.pUS Military sites, Nato, and an Israeli Bank have all been targeted in recent days.pExperts have warned users to be on the lookout for phishing emails and webmasters to ensure their servers are secure.pThe hacking of security barriers for political or ideological reasons has been branded by some as hacktivism. And it is thought that as use of the internet grows, so too will the number of attacks.pbDefaced/bpOn 7 January, pro-Palestinian hackers defaced several high-profile websites, including a US Army website, and the Nato Parliamentary Assembly's website.pCalling themselves "Agd_Scorp/Peace Crew", they replaced pages with a white screen showing a person throwing an object at a tank and the Israeli, American and British flags with a red strike through them.p"Stop attacks u israel and usa ! you cursed nations ! one day muslims will clean the world from you!" wrote the hackers.pDwight Griswold, the Nato Parliamentary Assembly's head of IT, says that the attackers persisted in attempting access for a number of days following the initial attack, adding that the intruders did not gain access to any of the Assembly's internal servers.p /quot;iIt's clear that it is a result of what happening in Gaza. We see it as part of the war.quot;/ibr /bYoav KerenbrDomain The Net/bbr /br /p"The fact is that it's always a cat and mouse game. There is no system that is impenetrable."pHackers also hijacked the domain names of Israeli online news site ynetnews.com and the Israel Discount Bank. They rerouted visitors to a page showing anti-Israel messages with images of prisoners being abused in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.pOther approaches appealed to a web user's potential loyalties; a website called www.help-israel-win.com asked visitors to download and install a file that was later determined to be a trojan that could allow for remote access to and control of a computer.pThe number of attacks has skyrocketed in Israel in the past few months, said Yoav Keren, chief executive of domain name registry Domain The Net.p"It's clear that it is a result of what happening in Gaza," said Mr Keren. "We see it as part of the war."pIsraeli Arab and pro-Palestinian sites have also been targeted. Last year, hackers defaced three websites, replacing pages with the Israeli flag and the symbol of the banned far-right group Kach.pSpeaking to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the manager of news website Arabs48.com Az-a-Din Badran said his site was "constantly suffering from repeated hack attempts".pbFacebook fight/bpThe battle also looms large on social networking site Facebook, where dozens of groups related to the conflict in Gaza have sprung up.img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45373000/jpg/_45373139_jidf.jpg" align="left" width="226" height="170" alt="Jewish Internet Defence Force" border="0" vspace="4" hspace="4"pThe clash flared up when a group using the logo of the Jewish Internet Defence Force (JIDF) took control of several of these groups.pThey removed content and replaced it with statements supporting Israeli policy and criticising Hamas, and replaced the groups' images with the JIDF logo.pAndrew Silvera, who is active on several pro-Palestinian groups on Facebook, was one of those targeted. He said that his account was hacked after he responded to a Facebook request from another user, inviting him to be an administrator of a similar group.p"As soon as I clicked it I realized there was something wrong with the link. It wasn't like a normal Facebook group.p"As soon as I pressed it, that was it, my account just vanished," he said. "They kidnapped my account."pMr Silvera tried to contact Facebook about his account, but told BBC News that he had as yet received no reply.pFrancesco Paris started a Facebook group criticising the JIDF's alleged behaviour online after he noticed that a group he wanted to join had been affected.p"I noticed that all of the discussion boards had been taken down, the description of the group had been changed to 'closed' and the tagline said something like 'Israel for life'," he told the BBC.p"The picture had a 'Jewish Internet Defence Force' [image], I had no idea what that was."p /quot;iWe are not hackersquot;/ibrbr /bJewish Internet Defence Force/bbr /br /pAfter noticing that the content of several other groups had been similarly altered, he started his group.pMr Paris said that he received Facebook messages that attempted to gather his account login information.pHe provided the BBC with a copy of one of these so-called "phishing" emails, which has a link leading to a fake Facebook login page that asks for users login detail.pA spokesperson for the JIDF, who declined to be named, told BBC News that it is an advocacy group that fights anti-Semitism online.pThe group would not confirm whether the Facebook groups were shut down by people affiliated with the JIDF.p"We are not hackers. We are also not involved with phishing. We do not break the law for our work," the spokesperson said.pThe spokesperson pointed out that one of the groups included anti-Semitic cartoons and graphic images of injured and dead people and criticised Facebook for allowing "hateful, anti-Semitic, racist material and material which promotes Islamic terrorism and violence" to remain on the site.p"Despite thousands of our members reporting offensive material, Facebook does not seem to act."img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45373000/jpg/_45373200_natohack.jpg" align="left" width="226" height="170" alt="Hacked NATO site" border="0" vspace="4" hspace="4"pA spokesperson for Facebook said that the firm would not respond to specific alleged incidents, but that they were aware of the phishing attacks.p"We have noticed a couple of instances where a page or a group admin has had their account credentials phished. In such cases, we will reset the passwords on the users' accounts and they should have control again.p"We are just a platform and the discussions that are taking place online are also taking place offline," the Facebook spokesperson added.p"We are not taking sides."pbWorse to come/bpProfessor Peter Sommer, a cybercrime expert at the London School of Economics, says that security professionals have come to expect such hacktivism attacks.p /quot;iThe fear isÂ
'look, if they can do this, what else can they do'quot;/ibr /bPeter PowerbrSecurity expert/bbr /br /p"It's been going on for at least 10 years. It's a very obvious form of making a protest," he said.p"It's far more attractive than turning up at an airport or outside an embassy and possibly getting arrested, certainly getting cold and possibly bruised in the process."pSocial networking sites like Facebook are usually secure "at a fundamental level", he said, but users must take responsibility for their account's security.p"Unfortunately, security at a personal level is relatively hard work and rather tiresome, but there is no feasible alternative."pPeter Power, who sits on the UK Security Review Commission, said that cyberattacks are commonplace, noting a recent attack aimed at bringing down the whole of the UK's internet infrastructure that was stopped at a late stage.img src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45373000/jpg/_45373249_facebookclosedgroupendthesiegedonotuse.jpg" align="left" width="226" height="170" alt="Hacked Facebook group" border="0" vspace="4" hspace="4"pWhile not as dramatic as such large-scale attacks, simply redirecting a website to a propaganda message also creates a climate of fear.p"When people penetrate websites - and you see it on your screen - it becomes very personal to you. The fear isÂ
'look, if they can do this, what else can they do'" he said.pMr Power emphasised that "the UK government is keenly aware of this [threat]" and has set up the CPNI (Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure) to protect the country's essential services.pThe Nato Parliamentary Assembly's Dwight Griswold admitted that although they are embarrassing, he is not overly concerned about the messages hackers put on his organisation's website.p"My more worrisome threat is if someone breaks in and doesn't leave a big message like that.hrpThis article is from the a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk"BBC News website/a. #169; British Broadcasting Corporation/pdiv class="feedflare"
a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/bbcnewstechnologyfullfeed?a=kz2415.p"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/bbcnewstechnologyfullfeed?i=kz2415.p" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/bbcnewstechnologyfullfeed?a=ky3qLF.p"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/bbcnewstechnologyfullfeed?i=ky3qLF.p" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/bbcnewstechnologyfullfeed?a=kRODWl.P"img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/bbcnewstechnologyfullfeed?i=kRODWl.P" border="0"/img/a
/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/bbcnewstechnologyfullfeed/~4/511644344" height="1" width="1"/
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.