Cyberattack again disrupts Israel’s credit card payments

SHVA (Automatic Bank Services Ltd.) has provided communication in Israel among various payment clearers for credit card transactions, experiencing confusion again, preventing payments from clearing from around 11am this morning. The company said “the cause is being investigated by the company’s specialized team,” and that there are “updates on all developments.”

After that, about an hour after the malfunction began, SHVA issued an official statement saying, “The national payment system with debit cards has been operating normally for the past hour and can carry out margin transactions.” did. However, SHVA reported that the system was operating normally from 11:30am, but the confusion continued around 1pm.

The original assessment was that it was nothing more than a communication malfunction, but in the afternoon the SHVA reported it was a “simple cyber incident.”

As far as “Globes” can see, this is a “denial of service attack” (DDO), in which many remote servers try to access payment servers that can destroy services. This is a temporary and unsleek attack, but can cause damage for several hours.

It’s not the first time

Last October, SHVA reported difficulties in clearing issues with credit card transactions and communications with payment systems. The company then admitted that the three-hour breakdown was due to a cyber attack. In addressing this issue, SHVA decided to cut its ability to connect to Israeli payment systems from overseas. The company’s response at the time stated in its assessment that “the incident had no substantial impact on the company’s revenue.”

Two weeks later, another glitch was discovered after a cyberattack on the Clearing Company’s Hyp’s credit guard. It provides clearing solutions to large companies such as supermarket chains, health funds, fashion chains, and public transport. As it was an attack on a single company, the damage was not so serious, and SHVA reported that the national payment system at the time was operating normally.

“Den-of-service attack”

“This is a ‘denial of service attack’, meaning that the company’s servers are being “shotted” with many requests,” said Gilmetsing, the chief of staff at Checkpoint and head of Global Communications. This will cause a crash. These disrupt these systems, disrupt the scope of tools used by the country, not just small attack entities. It’s worth noting. ”

Messing said, “This is the third time there has been a “service-driven attack” in recent months to clear services in Israel. The enemies of Israel, and anyone who wants to carry out an important attack here, have recognized the opportunity to create it here. The big cognitive effects affecting each of us in a way that doesn’t require the system itself to be hacked, if it happens and is successful in the past, it is very possible. It will happen again in the future. ”

He continues, “These are the capabilities of state operations. This does not necessarily mean Iran, but in the past, Iranian entities have been behind such attacks. In theory, state entities are You can work with smaller entities to provide these tools, but attacks aimed at promoting echo and noise will not result in any other real damage. It doesn’t produce. This comes from an actor whose goal is cognitive, not economic, such as stealing data or money.

“The way to deal with such attacks is to deal with the capacity of the orders in parallel. The larger it is, the more difficult it will be to disrupt the service.”

Panorays co-founder and CTO Demi Ben -Ari agreed that this was a “denial of service attack” and said, “This is a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) event, which means reducing the availability of the service. We are based today on the interfaces (APIs) between systems and entities, especially in collaboration with financial ones. Only if they are not well protected.

Published by Globes, Israel Business News -en.globes.co.il- February 13, 2025.

©Copyright of Globals Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.