Exploring Information and Cyber Warfare in the Israel-Hamas Conflict

Key Takeaways

• The recent conflict began with a well-coordinated surprise assault by Hamas, resulting in significant humanitarian, political, and military challenges for Israel.

• For their attack, Hamas drew inspiration from Russian and Chinese military information warfare doctrine, incorporating cyber warfare, propaganda, psychological tactics, and deception into its operations.

• As part of its information strategy, Hamas used various media outlets and social media to shape its public image, contributing to international support for Palestinians despite the unprovoked terrorist attack.

• Cyber warfare also played a significant role in the conflict, with Hamas expanding its offensive cyber capabilities and hacktivist groups launching attacks against Israeli government websites and critical infrastructure.

• The cyberattacks disrupted online services, spread misinformation, and added complexity to the conflict, highlighting the evolving nature of war in the digital age.

Introduction

The Israel-Hamas conflict, a long-standing and deeply rooted geopolitical issue, erupted again into a devastating and multifaceted struggle. In this era of rapid technological advancement, the battlefield extends beyond just physical confrontations. Information operations and cyber warfare have emerged as significant players in this complex conflict. This post will delve into the Israel-Hamas conflict, exploring the use of information and cyber capabilities.

The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas began with a shockingly well-coordinated surprise assault by Hamas. With its operation named “Al-Aqsa Storm,” the Palestinian militant group unleashed a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israeli towns, followed by militants breaking through the heavily fortified border fence. The terror attack’s scale was unprecedented, leaving Israel to grapple with significant humanitarian, political, and military challenges.

Russian and Chinese Influence on Hamas’s Information Warfare    

Hamas has also drawn inspiration from Russian and Chinese military information warfare doctrine to gain an asymmetric advantage in planning and executing its operations. Russia’s military information doctrine incorporates cyber warfare, including offensive and defensive operations in network disruption, information operations involving propaganda and psychological tactics, and the integration of information warfare into broader military strategies. Deception operations involving camouflage, disinformation, and other tactics to deceive, confuse, and mislead an adversary complement the Russian information warfare doctrine. Adapted to modern technologies, deception now includes cyber and information warfare as integral components and is used to sow confusion and doubt to undermine an adversary’s confidence and decision-making.

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has a similar doctrine. The PLA maintains readiness in six distinct information domains: operational secrecy, military deception, electronic warfare, network-based warfare, psychological warfare, and physical destruction. This supports their “Three Warfares” strategy, which comprises psychological warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare. This approach involves conducting influence operations to achieve strategic objectives by targeting various sectors, including cultural institutions, media organizations, businesses, academic institutions, and policy communities across the United States, other nations, and international institutions.

Information Campaigns in the Israel-Hamas Conflict

We can see elements of both these doctrines within Hamas’s and its supporter’s information campaign to gain an advantage in its conflict with Israel. Firstly, Hamas engaged in active deception operations in preparation for this campaign. These operations created the impression that Hamas was focused on Palestinian economic concerns rather than war, and they were not preparing for conflict, enabling them to prepare for this massive operation secretly. These deceptions were extraordinarily successful; Hamas achieved total strategic and tactical surprise.

Additionally, Hamas maintains a dedicated unit focused on public image enhancement, leveraging newspapers, social media, and television for information influence operations. The campaign’s efforts have contributed to demonstrations and protests supporting Palestine internationally and across U.S. universities; Palestinians are seen as victims despite Hamas’s unprovoked attack. There is also an ongoing social media campaign effectively blaming Israel for its operation, even as reports of atrocities committed by Hamas have emerged.

The importance of cyber warfare in modern conflicts is also becoming increasingly apparent. A cyber campaign began earlier in the year when a Gaza Strip-based group, referred to as Storm-1133, targeted Israeli energy, defense, and telecommunications companies. The group used fake LinkedIn profiles and posed as software developers or project managers to deliver malware to employees, allowing them to establish back doors for future communications. However, it is unlikely that there was any coordination with the Hamas incursion since acting in concert with the militants could have alerted Israel to the planned assault.

Although Israel, like many other countries, is consistently targeted by cyber-attacks, Hamas hacktivist groups undertook significant offensive cyber operations in conjunction with this attack. A compilation of reported incidents from October 2nd to October 10th shows that Israel was the most attacked state. Israeli online platforms were the primary focus of these attacks, totaling 143 instances; virtually all of the attacks occurred on or after October 7th.

The majority of the attacks were distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against government and private websites, temporarily taking them offline without causing lasting damage. Government websites were the most attacked category, with approximately 36% of all claimed attacks, followed by News and Media (10%). For example, on October 8th, the Israeli government’s website (gov.il) became unreachable worldwide due to the cyberattack. Killnet, a Russia-aligned hacktivist group, claimed responsibility for the attack and posted messages on the hacked website. Killnet accused the Israeli government of supporting Ukraine in 2022, betraying Russia, and vowed to target all government systems in Israel. Another hacktivist group, Anonymous Sudan, believed to be of Russian origin, has aligned itself with Hamas and Killnet. Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for targeting The Jerusalem Post website, a major source of reporting on the conflict, causing it to crash. They also stated that they had attacked Israel’s Iron Dome and Alert applications, while another group called “Team Insane PK” claimed to have hacked an Israeli hydroelectric power plant.

Another Pro-Palestinian group of hackers (AnonGhost) targeted an Israeli app designed to warn residents of incoming rocket strikes. They sent fake rocket alerts and even claimed that a nuclear bomb was incoming. While the app had a small user base, the incident raised concerns about false missile alerts during a conflict.

The cybersecurity group Check Point Software tracked over forty such groups were involved in these attacks. They most likely originated from outside Gaza due to limited internet connectivity in the region. Some of the groups behind the attacks have ties to countries like Iran, which has supported Hamas, but no direct links to foreign governments have been established.

There are also groups of hacktivists supporting Israel; for example, a group of Indian hackers allegedly took down the official Hamas website.

Concluding Thoughts

Hamas’s information operations contributed significantly to their success and helped to engender widespread support. The supporting cyberattacks have also added complexity to the ongoing conflict, with hackers exploiting various methods to disrupt online services, spread misinformation, and sow confusion, hindering people’s ability to stay informed about the situation in the region. The attacks underscore the evolving nature of conflict in the digital age, where cyber capabilities play an increasingly significant role, both in preparing the information battle space and to gain tactical advantage.

This conflict began and continues as a multidimensional struggle, with information and cyber capabilities assuming increasingly critical roles. Hamas is actively involved in information and cyber operations to gain regional and global influence and advantage, with hacktivist groups further complicating the landscape. It is crucial to recognize these dynamics and the role of cyber operations in overall strategies to counter the activities of terrorist organizations effectively.