Occupied Jerusalem -

The "cyber" war between Israel and Iran has raged out of secret into the open, as Tel Aviv and Tehran have admitted carrying out coordinated cyber attacks against each other, amid fears that the conflict may develop into a direct military confrontation between them.

Tel Aviv was often silent about the cyber attacks it was exposed to, refusing to disclose the extent of the losses and damages it incurred, and it also refrained from accusing Tehran of being behind these attacks.

Recently, with the expansion of the "cyber" war and the electronic attacks that have become a threat to Israeli installations, infrastructure and national security, Tel Aviv hastened, as usual, to point the finger at Tehran, but without acknowledging the truth, size and nature of losses and damages.

The Israeli secrecy over the Iranian attacks comes for fear of revealing the extent of piracy and theft of civil or military information and data, and using it as a counter war.

The continuous electronic attacks targeted Israeli water facilities, commercial banks and hospitals, and hackers believed to be Iranians managed to penetrate the accounts of officials in the army, security services and even some political officials.

The Iranian attacks also targeted the computers and servers of government ministries, as well as sewage networks, and Israeli insurance companies, which reflected the frantic pace of attacks taking place in the Israeli cyberspace, according to the Israeli National Cyber ​​Authority.

turning point

The Israeli company Check Point, which develops electronic programs to protect information, has revealed;

It was revealed that a group of Iranian hackers known as "Phosphorus" had hacked the emails of former Israeli officials.

The Israeli company acknowledged the success of Iranian hackers in penetrating the email addresses of officials, including a reserve general in the Israeli occupation army, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and the systems of a security research institute.

Not only did the Iranian hackers control these accounts, but they used them for correspondence by sending messages written in the names of the owners of these accounts without their knowledge and without discovering the truth of the hack.

The attacks affected prominent security figures, as hackers succeeded in hacking the phone of the wife of Mossad chief David Barnea, and the phone and digital computer of Defense Minister Benny Gantz.

The hacking campaign of the electronic addresses and e-mails of Israeli officials began last December and continued until early June, and its features were revealed after the Iranian hacker group penetrated the email box of a general in the reserves, a well-known person who assumed a sensitive security position.

Despite the recognition of the attacks and the breaches, the Israeli military oversight imposes a blackout and prevents the publication of the general’s identity and details, which indicates that the breach caused damage and losses, and that the targeted person is still in a prestigious position and provides advice to the security and military institutions, and has an impact on decision-making.

From what was allowed to be published, it is inferred that the hackers, after penetrating the e-mail box of the General of the Reserve, sent messages in his name to other officials, asking them to write articles and assessments of the position on summarizing the year 2021 in terms of security, in addition to the security and military challenges of Israel in the year 2022, including the position of Iranian nuclear.

continuous attacks

Since the beginning of this year, and over the course of 6 months of attacks, Iranian hackers have managed to penetrate an email box belonging to the head of a central research institute in Israel. They also monitored messages between him and a former US ambassador, copied and resent them from a fake email as if belonging to the ambassador.

The Iranian hackers managed to get the head of the Israeli Security Institute to give the password and the password to his workplace, as it is likely that they were able to infiltrate the research institute and the files, research and strategic assessments, and they succeeded in penetrating the email of a well-known researcher in Middle Eastern affairs.

Not only that, but also via the e-mail of the researcher for Middle East affairs, the hackers succeeded in “catching” a manager in a central Israeli security company whose identity and company details are prohibited from being published. Traveling in their network.

According to unofficial Israeli estimates, Iranian hackers have carried out 3,000 electronic attacks against Israeli targets, in order to hack sensitive information, disrupt the work system of the targeted Israeli institutions, and create confusion and confusion on the Israeli Internet.


Israeli fears

The "cyber" war between Tel Aviv and Tehran, which has come to be called in the Israeli army "the battle between wars", comes in the context of the conflict between them over the Iranian nuclear project, as electronic warfare has turned into an alternative to direct confrontation and the use of conventional weapons in war, according to the National Security Research Center. at Tel Aviv University.

The center estimates that the cyber war will rage more in the future and on multiple fronts, in parallel with the Israeli political struggle against the nuclear agreement, and Tel Aviv's attempts to limit the military presence of Iran and Hezbollah in Syria and undermine Tehran's influence in the Middle East.

The center pointed out that cyber attacks have an important role in Israel's deterrence against Iran, especially in light of Tel Aviv's fears of the repercussions of a direct military confrontation with Tehran.

Without going into the extent of the effectiveness of Israeli deterrence, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and Politics confirmed that Tehran possesses advanced cyber capabilities, and accordingly Israel expresses its concern about these capabilities and cyber attacks that target in particular infrastructure projects, institutions, civil companies, and vital services in Israel.

According to the Israeli Center, cyber attacks on civilian and vital Israeli installations and infrastructure projects;

They pose a threat and harm to the Israeli economy, and there are Israeli fears that in the event of war and a direct confrontation, Tehran will try to target the home front with cyber attacks.