Israel's stock exchange and national carrier's website hacked

JERUSALEM: The websites of Israel's stock exchange ( TASE) and national carrier, El Al, were hacked today by pro-Palestinian hacker group, "Nightmare", a day after Islamist Hamas called upon to instensify cyber war against the Jewish state.

The recent attack follows a wave of similar hacking attacks in which credit card information of thousands of Israelis were released by a hacker, claming to be Saudi.

"The penetration into Israeli websites opens a new front for electronic resistance and war against the Israeli occupation," Hamas spokesperso, Sami Abu Zuhri, said yesterday during a news conference in the Gaza Strip.

While El Al's website could not load at all, the stock exchange was only presenting trade figures, without the possibility to perform any other action.

Stock market officials however said that trading was going on as usual, as the computer system that manages it is separate from the website.

A TASE spokesperson confirmed that the trading system and the website are not connected, emphasising that the trading system was in no way damaged by the hack.

El Al said they were "taking safety measures in the operations of the company's website," and that disruptions were to be expected.