Billboards in Israel Were Hacked to Display Pro-Hamas Content

Hackers have managed to access two smart billboards in Israel that briefly showed pro-Hamas content.

Gil Messing of Check Point Software Technologies, a cybersecurity firm in Tel Aviv, told CNBC that the two hijacked smart billboards in or near Tel Aviv showed "anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas footage" for a few minutes on Thursday.

Messing noted that the footage featured "the Israeli flag under fire... footage from Gaza, things like this." According to Eilon Rosman, CEO of CTV Media Israel, the company that owned the two billboards, the hacking incident happened a few minutes after they opened the network.

"They must've immediately penetrated it in that moment," Rosman told Geektime, as CNBC reported. Reuters also reported the same incident, saying the billboard in Holon City showed pictures of rockets and the burning Israeli flag.

Messing noted that cyberattacks of this nature were very rare, but most cyberthreats that Check Point had detected since Saturday involved either the defacement of websites or distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks for a short period of time.

Cyberattacks Rising in Israel

Comparing the general scale of the cyberattacks the cybersecurity firm has tracked, Messing said another "significant attack" happened when a hacker gang posing to be from Jordan broke into a private college's network on Monday and posted over 250,000 records of staff, students, and former students on Telegram.

As a result, the college was forced to shut down its systems. The private college has since then contacted experts in cyberattacks and the National Cyber Authority. An investigation was conducted and showed their computer system had leaked information.

Check Point Security has tracked potential cyberattacks in the country, noting that "more than 40 groups" are now engaged in, or claim to be engaged in cyberattacks, adding that the threats are not unusual.

The cybersecurity firm has tracked hacking groups on the dark web or their Telegram pages, with potential critical attacks reportedly on some of Israel's top water management agencies.

Volunteer Cybersecurity Services in Israel

Reuters reported that as a response to the various cyberattacks and hacktivist activities against Israel, Israeli cybersecurity experts have offered free cybersecurity services to companies that are being actively targeted.

The volunteer group is reportedly led by Ohad Zaidenberg, an Israeli IT specialist, who said the Israeli volunteer cyber community is "effective and moving."

Omri Segev Moyal, the chief executive of the Israeli cybersecurity firm Profero, noted that the organizers of the volunteers were drawing the line on members taking vigilante action against Hamas.

Moyal, who is monitoring and running a popular Facebook group for Israeli cybersecurity professionals, said he understood that some "people are mad." However, he believed that vigilante action would still backfire.

Moyal noted that he had already removed several Facebook posts calling for digital action against the Palestinian group. He said even hacking activities that could help missing victims are turned down by Profero as the firm believes it could "cause damage to the victims."

There is reportedly a rise in hacking activities in Israel, sparked by the war in Gaza, which is governed by the militant group Hamas.