People associated with the Anonymous hackers' organization are threatening to attack Israel's cyber infrastructure on April 7. This annual "tradition" began in April 2013, winning the name OpIsrahell. Operatives associating with Anonymous previously warned that they intended to "wipe Israel off the map of the Internet," but the damage actually caused by the annual attacks was negligible.

Are Israeli companies concerned about the attack announced for April 7 this year? A survey by the research department of "People and Computers" indicates that enterprises are taking the threat seriously, but that most of them are taking no special measures. The survey included 80 computing executives in large and medium-sized enterprises.

55% of the respondents said that they had made no special preparations for an Anonymous attack, while 45% said they took any threat seriously, and were bolstering security for their information systems. 43% of those questioned admitted that they had previously been victimized by a cyber attack unrelated to Anonymous. 92% of those questioned said that the damage caused by the attack amounted to tens of thousands of shekels, while the rest estimated the damage in the hundreds of thousands of shekels.

Commenting on the findings, People and Computers group CEO Peli Hanamer Peled said, "The results of the survey of IT managers in Israel reflect an appropriate level of security among enterprises in general, not just for April 7. One of the reasons for this is the growing awareness of cyber threats on the part of enterprises, reflected in larger allocations of resources for IT managers for protecting the enterprise's information systems."

Published by Globes [online], Israel Business News - www.globes-online.com - on March 28, 2017

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