Anonymous Attacks Israeli Websites and Databases

Last week, Israel declared that they were launching "Operation Pillar of Defense" as retaliation against Palestinian political group Hamas for launching hundreds of missiles into Israeli communities. Israel aimed to destroy the infrastructure in the Gaza strip so that Hamas was unable to launch any further rockets. The region has been in turmoil for quite sometime, battling over area, religion and just about anything else.

In my previous post, I gave a brief overview of one of the most notable hacktivism groups that exists Anonymous. The group decided to get into the action on November 17th, siding with the Palestinian groups and hacking numerous Israeli websites. The group called the conflict, "barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of the Palestinian people". The group attacked a number of Israeli websites, including Israel's Foreign Ministry and the municipal Website for Tel Aviv, one of Israels largest cities. The group has also deleted the databases of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Bank of Jerusalem, in addition to leaking email address and passwords for other sites. 

I find it interesting that Anonymous chose to take such a one-sided stance on such a controversial topic. In the past, we have seen the group hack websites and databases for political groups that have little to no support from the rest of the world, thus it is easy to side with what they have done. However, in this situation there is no "bad guy". Both groups are at fault for the conflict that is occurring and there is no majority leader in terms of popularity. By siding with the Palestinian side, Anonymous has made it very clear who they support in the conflict and surely lost thousands of Israeli supporters in the process.