Hacker group 'Anonymous Sudan' targets security firm Check Point and multiple Israeli universities

Israeli cyber security company Check Point reportedly suffered a cyber attack that forced it to temporarily take its website offline.

According to local media reports, a group of threat actors going by the name “Anonymous Sudan” carried out the cyber attack on Check Point as part of a campaign called ’OPIsrael’. 

 

The group also attacked the official websites of several Israeli universities such as Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Haifa University, Weizmann Institute of Science, Open University of Israel, and Reichman University.

“Infrastructure: Universities - Israel education sector has been dropped Because of what they did in Palestine,” Anonymous Sudan said on its Telegram channel. The group also warned that it plans to carry out the "main cyber attack" on April 7.

Acknowledging the cyber attack, a Check Point spokesperson said, “All our sites are functioning well despite a large-scale attack on them. The company’s website is protected against DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks at the highest level. [It is] one of the strongest websites in the world.

“The hackers used a huge amount of requests [in order to] affect - for a few minutes- the ability to reach the site. Thanks to [our] protections, the site works as usual and was not damaged by the attack,” the spokesperson added.

In a statement shared with the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Maariv, Check Point said, “These are service-preventing attacks - those that only bring down websites and do not steal information and that can be recovered from relatively easily. However, it can be assumed that these groups are trying to produce more significant attacks, including ransom attacks and data theft.”

The Jerusalem Post reported the cyber attacks On April 4 but on the very next day, Anonymous Sudan listed the news agency as a victim on its Telegram channel. The group also used the Jerusalem Post’s Twitter account to announce the hacking.

In February, Anonymous Sudan also claimed responsibility for a cyber attack on the Scandinavian airline SAS that knocked its website offline and exposed the sensitive personal information of certain customers. The hacker group said the attack was in response to the burning of the Holy Quran during a January protest in Stockholm.

“This message is addressed to the idiot Swedish experts. Russia has nothing to do with these attacks. These attacks are only in response to the burning of the Qur’an, and what Sweden is always doing by burning the Qur’an.

“And we will continue the attacks in a large and violent manner, if an official apology is not issued by the Swedish government regarding the burning of the Qur’an,” the hacker group added.