Israel's Minister of Infrastructure, Energy and Water, Yuval Steinitz told attendees of CyberTech 2016 in Tel Aviv that the Israeli Public Electricity Authority suffered a serious cyber attack.
The attackers hit the Public Authority with malicious software that caused problems in internal systems, and some of them are still not working properly!
The minister said on Tuesday that officials are trying to neutralize it, and meanwhile the Jerusalem Post describes the incident as one of the largest cyberattacks to have occurred in Israel.
“Yesterday we detected one of the largest cyber attacks we have ever experienced,” Steinitz said. “The virus has already been identified and the appropriate software has already been prepared to neutralize it. We had to paralyze many of the computers of the Israel Electricity Authority. We are handling the situation and I hope that the problem will be solved soon, but unfortunately now many computers are not working as they should,” the article from the Times of Israel reported on Tuesday.
The attack was detected on Monday as temperatures in Jerusalem dropped below freezing, causing record electricity consumption. In response, Israel's national Internet Office shut down parts of Israel.
As is often the case in these cases, it is difficult to attribute the attack to a specific perpetrator. The Israeli Energy Minister did not identify any perpetrators, and we will probably have to wait for further analysis of the software.
The attack raises awareness about the level of security of critical infrastructure worldwide. Steinitz added that the attack was an example of the vulnerability of infrastructure to cyberattacks and shows how important it is to prepare for such incidents.
