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Monday, June 29, 2026
Iranian cyberattacks on Israel surged in 2026, cyber chief says
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The number of Iranian cyberattacks against Israel has shot up since the launch of the US-Israeli war with Iran this year, Yossi Karadi, director general of the National Cyber Directorate, is quoted as saying.
Karadi tells German newspaper Die Welt that in June 2025, during the first round of war between Israel and Iran, Israel’s authorities registered around 1,600 hostile cyber incidents.
During the same month in 2026, the number jumped to some 4,800 incidents, he tells the paper.
“Some groups are very skilled,” Karadi says, according to the German text of the interview. “We can handle them, but we have to take them seriously. Unlike in the kinetic realm, there’s no ceasefire in cyberspace.”
Karadi says the attacks were directed against systems used by Israel’s critical infrastructure, central organizations, small- to medium-sized companies and the public, citing law practices and accounting firms as among the smaller ones hit.
“So far — and hopefully it stays that way — we’ve managed to fend off attacks on critical infrastructure,” he says.
Companies that were easier to penetrate often ended up having their computer systems wiped, he says, without mentioning any names.
Iran typically denies carrying out hacking campaigns against other countries while reporting attacks on itself.
The Times of Israel Community.