'Anonymous' targets Israeli websites over Gaza war

JERUSALEM (AP) - A concerted effort of millions of attempts to cripple Israeli websites during the Gaza conflict has failed, Israel's finance minister said on Monday, claiming that the only site that was successfully hacked was back up within minutes.

Cyber security experts said that such hacking attempts have become a new aspect of modern-day warfare and states have to invest in fortifying their virtual defenses on a battleground with vague terrain.

Israel regularly fights off hundreds of hacking attempts every day, but nothing on the scale of the recent torrent of attacks.

The online group Anonymous and other protesters have barraged Israel with more than 60 million hacking attempts, according to the finance minister, Yuval Steinitz.