Israel National Cyber Directorate announced on Monday morning that an attack on an Israeli medical center in the north of the country was thwarted. The hackers, belonging to Iran and Hezbollah, had attempted to disrupt the hospital's operations.
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Following the attack on the Ziv Hospital in Safed three weeks ago, the National Cyber System along with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet internal security agency investigated the incident, determining the involvement of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry and Hezbollah's cyber team.
The attack had been stopped, through a joint effort from the Israeli security forces and the medical center's staff, before the AGRIUS hackers were able to achieve the goal of disrupting the hospital's operations and harming the medical treatment of civilians.
"The AGRIUS cyber attack group, which belongs to the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence, attempted at the end of November 2023 to carry out a cyber attack on Ziv Hospital with the aim of damaging its regular functioning, against the background of the 'Iron Swords' war," the National Cyber Directorate said in a statement.
"The attack was carried out by the [Iranian] Ministry of Intelligence with the involvement of a Hezbollah cyber unit called Lebanese Cedar led by Muhammad Ali Marai," the statement added.
However, the investigation determined that the joint Iranian and Hezbollah attack had compromised the sensitive personal information stored in the hospital's systems.
"The attack was stopped at an early stage, thereby preventing the attempt by Iran and Hezbollah to harm the functioning of the hospital and the potential for humanitarian harm to civilians," the statement explained.
"However, the attackers managed to take materials from the hospital and started posting them on social networks. In joint efforts with the state attorney's office in order to maintain patient privacy, the social media channels where some of the sensitive information was published were removed," it concluded.
This article was first published by i24NEWS.
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