Manama: A number of Israeli websites were hacked over the weekend by a group that calls itself Team Kuwait Hackers, an Israeli daily has reported.
Debbie Goldsmith, a director at the site Aardvark Israel, said that on Saturday night, instead of offering explanations about gap-year programmes in Israel, the site showed "a countdown and a clickable button, accompanied by eerie music."
The site later showed a message in Arabic: "TeaM KuWaiT HaCkErS - HaCkErS eV!L."
Alex Zilberman of APR, the company that manages Aardvark Israel's website, said that the hacker group also compromised the Israel Scouts' international site last week. Aardvark Israel and Israel Scouts' sites were back up within hours.
The Team Kuwait Hackers brags on its Facebook page that they are "The Best HaCkeRs iN The World," but Zilberman explained that the group used a simple method to take down the Israeli web pages.
"They use search engines to find sites with weaknesses that they can take advantage of. When they find ones that interest them, they use their method," Zilberman said, quoted by Jerusalem Post.
Sites that use open-source code are easier for hackers to overtake, he said.
"Millions of people use open-source codes around the world," he said, mentioning blogging platforms like Live- Journal and WordPress as examples.
Also last weekend, Turkish hackers took over Arutz Meir, an Israeli site focused on Torah education. A message on the site says: "stop supporting baby-killers."
The site's management said that it thought a Turkish group targeted their site because it had featured an interview with a Turkish man who converted to Judaism.
In early February, Pro-Palestinian hackers broke into the website of the Israel Trauma Coalition, replacing its home page with the words: "Virtual protests will continue...! Everything for Palestine!"
A group called the Gaza Hackers Team posted a photo of a Palestinian child beside an Israeli tank on the website of the Jewish People Policy Institute.
