SYRIAN ELECTRONIC ARMY HACKS ISRAELI CONTROL SYSTEM
Tehran, 29 Jumadil Akhir 1434/8 May 2013 (MINA) – The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) launched a successful cyber attack on the main infrastructure system of Haifa, one of the most important ports in Israel,
The cyber attack disrupting the operation of the servers in charge of urban management systems and public utilities in the city.
The SEA said it has hacked into the Haifa infrastructural system at around 22:00 (local time) Monday night (6/5), underlining that the hacking was done in retaliation for the recent Israeli strike on a research center in suburban Damascus.
“We would like to announce that in response to the unfair and illegal attacks of Israel on DATE, the SEA has penetrated one of the main infrastructural systems (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition/SCADA) in Haifa and managed to gain access to some sensitive data,” SEA said in a message left for the Israeli operators of Haifa SCADA system.
A copy of the SEA message to the Israelis was released by pastebin.com/aRCHeRr.
“The SEA is now able to cause irrecoverable damage to the Israelis’ infrastructural systems,” it added. The Fars News Agency reported as quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
Israel staged an airstrike on Syria on Sunday, hitting the Jamraya research center in the vicinity of the Syrian capital, Damascus. Syria said the Israeli regime had carried out the airstrike the third in the last few months.
The SEA warned that it could cause a major blast by continuing the attack on the servers of the Haifa infrastructural systems, but avoided further move due to inescapable human casualties as it did not want a story like the recent accident in Texas which claimed the lives of dozens of the people.
The SEA has recently gathered a name in the hacking market by successful attacks on a wide range of the western media, most notably the hacking of AP Twitter accounts and sending of bogus messages which wreaked havoc on stock exchanges. The hackers tweeted that President Obama had been injured in a bomb attack at the White House, causing a temporary 143-point drop on the Dow Jones industrial average.
Cybersecurity experts told that the SEA attacks are designed to disrupt and embarrass the West and pro-Israeli lobbies, states and entities.
SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) is a type of industrial control system (ICS). Industrial control systems are computer controlled systems that monitor and control industrial processes that exist in the physical world. SCADA systems historically distinguish themselves from other ICS systems by being large scale processes that can include multiple sites, and large distances. These processes include industrial, infrastructure, and facility-based processes.
Industrial processes include those of manufacturing, production, power generation, fabrication, and refining, and may run in continuous, batch, repetitive, or discrete modes.
Infrastructure processes may be public or private, and include water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, oil and gas pipelines, electrical power transmission and distribution, wind farms, civil defense siren systems, and large communication systems.
Facility processes occur both in public facilities and private ones, including buildings, airports, ships, and space stations. They monitor and control heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC), access, and energy consumption.
Hackers usually leave a couple of files for their colleagues to prove that their allegations are true. The SEA has left the following files on its website to show others in the hacking industry that it has had a successful security breach and hacking into the Haifa SCADA system. (T/P09P04).
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
