Israeli hackers attack Iranian sites

A group of Israeli hackers who call themselves "IDF Team" brought down Iran's English-language Press TV website and the Ministry of Health's website on Thursday in response to a series of attacks on Israeli sites the previous day.

Press TV is said to be the mouthpiece of the Iranian regime's propaganda campaign.

For full coverage of the cyber attack on Israel click here

"At 16:30 Israel time the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education website will be down until further notice. In addition to Iran's television network, broadcasting in English round-the-clock, based in Tehran that (is) called Press TV will be down until further notice," the hackers wrote in a message posted on Pastebin.

"(Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, what do you have to say about that?" they added.

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Ynet found that the Iranian websites were indeed shut down shortly after 4 pm. The Press TV website was restored about 20 minutes later, and the Health Ministry's website was back on the air after about an hour.

The Israeli hackers said the attack came in response to the recent attacks by Arab hackers. On Wednesday Arab hackers broke into the websites of two hospitals, as well as the Dan Public Transportation company website, the Israel Festival website, the Cinematheque website and the website of the Haaretz newspaper.

"If the Arab hackers thought the attacks on Israeli websites would go unanswered, we say to all the Arab hackers –you're mistaken," the Israeli hackers said in their message.

The so-called hacker war broke out about a month ago when a hacker calling himself "Omar" published tens of thousands of Israeli credit card numbers.

"Omar" identified himself as a Saudi national.

Aviel Magnezi contributed to the report

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