There's another world war brewing, and most of us don't even know it. Yet.
"The war should not go to the Internet. It should not be about companies," warns reformed Israeli hacker Ehud Tenenbaum, referring to the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. "It's much more dangerous. Once you start there, with the Internet, you realise everything is vulnerable. Any company connected to the Internet can be attacked--banks, electric companies, anything."
Tenenbaum should know. Three years ago, using the hacker alias Analyzer, he and some acolytes cyber-snooped through an estimated 400 US military sites, including that of the Pentagon. A team of FBI special agents and other US government investigators fingered Tenenbaum. He was indicted in the United States and Israel and then drafted into the Israeli military, where his skills might have been better appreciated. While he waits for his case to be resolved in Israel, he has taken a central role in the so-called cyberwar being waged between pro-Palestinians and pro-Israelis. Now chief technical officer of 2XS, an Israeli Internet security startup, Tenenbaum is doing free analyses of Israeli businesses' Web sites so they can defend themselves against attack from pro-Palestinian hackers. The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is now in its sixth month. Meanwhile, the parallel cyber-campaign being waged by both sides suggests that every company online represents a potential target. "It's like a guerrilla war with all types of combatants," says Ben Venzke, manager of intelligence production at the private Internet security consultancy iDefense. "We're seeing everything from unsophisticated defacements being done by teenagers, to known terrorists plotting attacks. Unity [a Palestinian umbrella group] has recruited a group of IT professionals and admins called the Iron Guards, and they are very sophisticated in what they can do."
Venzke has been monitoring Web sites and chat rooms since October, working his "intelligence-community sources," and preparing clients for imminent attacks. He sees no sign of a slowdown. His most recent count listed more than 90 Israeli sites, mainly business and government, that have been attacked, while 25 pro-Palestinian sites have been attacked. Attackers have used everything from viruses like Melissa and LoveLetter to dubious sounding programs like EvilPing and Attack 2.51.
Most of the damage has been done by freelancing hackers. By most accounts, the Web war in the Middle East started in October last year, when a pro-Israeli hacker launched an attack from a site called www.wizel.com. Among the sites attacked were the official sites for Hamas (a Palestinian Islamist movement), and the Palestinian National Authority. "That caused a major retaliation by the Palestinians," says Venzke. Indeed, many pro-Palestinian hackers from around the region began defacing Israeli sites.
A hacker named DoctorNuker broke into the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee Web site and made off with 700 credit card numbers and then sent out a mass e-mailing to 3500 people whose addresses he also pinched.
As the cyberwar has progressed, attacks from Unity and other Palestinian groups have become so intense that they effectively shut down NetVision, Israel's leading ISP, which claims to have 70 percent of the market there.
"NetVision is an example of why we have so much more to lose," says Tenenbaum. "Our country and our businesses are dependent on the Internet, and in the future it will even be more so." If a cease-fire were declared tomorrow, would the cyberwar stop as well? This "[will last] as long as the fighting continues," hackers mOrOn and Nightman write in an e-mail response. "[We] believe in miracles, and if such a miracle does happen [we] shall be the first one[s] to cease-fire this so-called cyberwar!"
