Yesterday a senior Israeli defense official said that Iran launched a massive cyber-attack against Israel during Operation Protective Edge.

The Times of Israel reported that most of the targets of the attacks were civilian, the IDF’s Twitter account was hacked, sending out a message that rockets had hit Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona.

A defense source said that the attack caused no significant damage and reiterated that critical systems were well protected. Nonetheless, the source added, the scale of the attack was impressive.

“In terms of the scope and kinds of targets that they tried to get to, we haven’t seen an attempt like this before,” the unnamed official said. “This time, the Iranians made a significant effort.”

Last year Prime Minister Netanyahu said that Israel had seen a marked increase in cyber-attacks from Iran and its allies Hamas and Hezbollah. A year ago, Israel reportedly began working to improve its defenses against hacking attacks from Iran.

[Photo: Ingrid Richter / Flickr ]