Indonesian hackers vow to continue cyberattacks on Israel

JAKARTA: Indonesian hackers are going to continue to breach the websites of Israeli government institutions, a group claiming a wave of cyberattacks that made headlines this week told Arab News.

The attacks by hackers from the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation came amid a series of similar breaches targeting Israeli agencies this month, which have been claimed by hacker groups from other countries, amid assaults by Israel’s security forces on Palestinian worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.

The Indonesian hacker group, which calls itself VulzSec Team, said it had successfully breached various government systems in Israel, including the police, health ministry, transport institutions as well as the central bank, and had obtained from them sensitive information.

Some of the data, mainly from the health ministry, which according to the group come from the recent attacks, has already been published on its Facebook page, with parts of it censored.

Arab News could not immediately verify the claims, while Tel Aviv has not commented yet on the cyberattack from Indonesia.

“In the future we will be more focused on other institutions and try to breach other systems in Israel,” VulzSec Team told Arab News, adding that they censor the data they share and would not upload sensitive information as there were no bad intentions behind the hacks.

VulzSec Team said its “Operation Israel” was launched “for humanitarian reasons to support the aspirations of Palestinian people’s rights” and aimed to raise awareness over their belief of “freedom among human beings, including the freedom for Palestinians from Israeli attacks.”

The Indonesia hacking campaign and the earlier ones by other groups, including Anonymous Sudan, appear to be carried out by “hacktivists,” or those who utilize internet tools to express their discontent.

For Ardi Sutedja, chairman and founder of Indonesia Cyber Security Forum, it has been a growing trend as people have been switching their attention from physical to virtual things.

“Oftentimes there’s this strong solidarity among people, but they fail to think of the long-term consequences that when they do such activities, it will surely be countered in various ways,” he told Arab News, adding that there might be a counterattack from Israel.

“When it comes to Israel, it is known that when they experience a cyberattack, they will counterattack, and we don’t know what sort of counter cyberattack they will use,” Sutedja said.

“This is against a state which has (technology) sophistication that we don’t even know the limits of.”