Israeli hackers operating under the name of ‘IDF Team’ brought down the website of the Arab Bank of Palestine on Thursday morning in retaliation for a web attack on Israel’s Anti-Drug Authority website.
In a message sent to The Jerusalem Post early Thursday morning, members of the ‘IDF Team’ said that by 10:00 am Israel time, the Gaza-based Arab Bank of Palestine’s website would be disabled, together with the website of the UAE’s central bank.
A visit to the Arab Bank of Palestine’s website confirmed that it was offline. The UAE’s Central Bank website also appeared to not be functioning.
On Wednesday night, Arab hackers succeeded in breaking into the server of the Anti-Drug Authority, and redirecting visitors to a website which features images of Palestinian gunmen crouching near a depiction of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
The words "death to Israel" were written in Hebrew alongside extensive Arabic messages. "Gaza hackers were here" was also written on the web page.
The attack represented an escalation from the distributed denial of service attack earlier this week against the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al, which took the sites offline but did not compromise their servers.
‘IDF Team’ described the latest hacks as "terrorist acts against Israel" and condemned "attempts to disrupt the normal course of life in Israel."
The Israeli hackers warned that "if there no change in the near future… [we] will disable stock market sites, government sites, and sites related to… economy and even security."
Also on Thursday, anti-Israel hackers said they published details on an additional 7,000 Israeli credit cards. The publication included the full credit card numbers, security codes that appear on the backs of the cards, and expiry dates.