Keeping ahead of increasing anti-Semitic hacks

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When hackers from a group called Moroccan Islamic Union-Mail defaced the website of Congregation Beth Am Israel in Penn Valley, Pa., in July 2014, the synagogue chose to look forward rather than dwell on the result of the cyberattack.

“We rebuilt our site and have worked with our domain provider to strengthen security, with an eye toward preventing future hacks,” Rabbi David Ackerman, leader of the congregation, told JNS.org.

The defacement of Beth Am Israel’s website—meaning that the website’s usual content was replaced with propaganda through videos and statements—is part of a new-age trend in anti-Semitism. In particular, the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) audit of anti-Semitic incidents that took place throughout America during 2014, data that was released in March 2015, identified a spike in cyberattacks by overseas hackers on synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions.

ADL said that in 2014, anti-Semitic hackers from the Arab/Muslim world targeted a Jewish high school in Albany; four Jewish institutions belonging to the Union for Reform Judaism in Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Georgia; a synagogue in Plantation, Fla.; and universities in California, Oregon, Utah, Missouri, Massachusetts. While past hacking efforts against Jewish institutions have primarily focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the more recent attacks have been carried out in the name of the Islamic State terror group, according to ADL.

Jonathan Vick, ADL’s assistant director for cyberhate response, recommends that Jewish leaders “safeguard their databases, websites, e-mails, and other digital information against the ‘hacker-frenzy’ environment that now exists around the world.”

“If Sony, Target, and Home Depot can fall victim to hackers, so too can Jewish organizations,” Vick told JNS.org. “Simple steps can help prevent loss of data and other risks associated with doing business in the online environment.”

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