OAN Brooke Mallory
UPDATED 3:22 PM – Thursday, April 27, 2023
A massive power outage that occurred on Thursday afternoon affected cities all throughout Israel and is believed to likely be the result of a cyberattack.
An secret cyber group known as “Anonymous Sudan” claimed responsibility, bragging on its Telegram channel about the pre-planned cyber threats.
“The electric strike was just for fun. We’ll show you more,” they posted.
Later, the pernicious group threatened to launch even more attacks.
“Israel, we are still playing with you … Soon you will be without the internet. We are working to down the internet in Israel like electricity.”
However, according to The Israel Electric Company (IEC), the power failure was due to a problem with a production unit.
“Due to a glitch in one of the Haifa power plants, power outages are being felt in a number of areas around the country … Regular power supply was renewed to a number of areas and will be fully renewed in the next few minutes.”
As right-wing demonstrators planned to take part in a rally meant to show support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the nation’s government, the abrupt outage caused significant traffic congestion in Tel Aviv.
In recent months, the Anonymous Sudan hacker group has claimed responsibility for a number of cyberattacks in Israel, in addition to their attack on two news websites, the Israeli Defense Ministry, and the Shin Bet security service on Wednesday, while Israel was commemorating its 75th anniversary of independence.
Netanyahu was also targeted and hacked on Facebook. Arabic verses from the Quran briefly filled his social media page.
A number of significant websites, including that of Ben-Gurion Airport and several colleges, were also hacked earlier in April.
Israeli authorities later blamed some of the attacks on Iran, including one on Haifa’s prestigious Technion Institute, in which the malicious “pranksters” demanded millions of shekels as a ransom.
This is a developing story.
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