Israel Targeted in Syria Cyber Attack

An organization calling itself the "Syrian Electronic Army" has launched a cyber attack against the water distribution system of Haifa, Israel's third largest city, an expert said on Saturday.

The attack "by this organization which we don't know exactly who is behind" was carried out two weeks ago and failed, said Professor Yitzhak Ben-Israel, head of Israel's National Council for Research and Development, quoted on Israeli radio.

The professor, a former cyber warfare adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said the attack was launched in retaliation for air raids on Syria reportedly carried out by Israel since the start of the year.

In April, the Shin Bet domestic security agency said a mass cyber attack by hacker groups targeting Israel had caused negligible damage.