(CNN) -- In the digital age, war isn't contained to the ground.

The Israeli government on Sunday said it has been hit with more than 44 million cyberattacks since it began aerial strikes on Gaza last week. Anonymous, the hacker collective, claimed responsibility for taking down some sites and leaking passwords because of what it calls Israel's "barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment" of Palestinians.

"The war is being fought on three fronts," Carmela Avner, Israel's chief information officer, said on Sunday in a press release. "The first is physical, the second is the world of social networks and the third is cyberattacks.

"The attackers are attempting to harm the accessibility of Israel's government websites on an ongoing basis. When events like the current operation occur, this sector heats up and we see increased activity. Therefore, at this time, defending the governmental computer systems is of invaluable importance."
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Israel and the military wing of Hamas have been criticized for using ready-to-share images on social media to spread spin about the conflict, which has claimed the lives of about 100 Palestinians and three Israelis since the back-and-forth violence began again Wednesday.

There is some dispute about the effectiveness of the cyberattacks.

Israel says the attacks have largely been unsuccessful.

"We are reaping the fruits on the investment in recent years in the development of computerized defense systems, but we have a lot of work in store for us," Israel's finance minister, Yuval Steinitz, said in a written statement.

Reuters quotes him as saying only one website was down for 10 minutes.

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Anonymous, meanwhile, posted a list of more than 650 Israel-based websites it says it has taken down or defaced since last week.

"They've knocked down websites, deleted databases and have leaked e-mail addresses and passwords," Casey Chan wrote Friday for the tech site Gizmodo. "It's a whopping takedown."

A post on an Anonymous Twitter feed Monday morning said another set of hackers had defaced the Israeli versions of several Microsoft websites, including Bing, MSN and Skype. Visitors to Bing's Israeli site on Monday morning saw an anti-Israel rant instead of a search-engine homepage.

"Microsoft is aware of the site defacements and working to get all sites fully functional," a company spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to CNN. "At present, we have seen no evidence to suggest the compromise of customer information but will take action to help protect customers as necessary."

A page associated with Anonymous also posted a new threat: "November 2012 will be a month to remember for the (Israel Defense Forces) and Internet security forces. Israeli Gov. this is/will turn into a cyberwar."

Some observers took this as a sign of an escalating digital battle.

"Beyond mere 'denial of service' tactics that blocked sites with floods of junk data, the hackers also ramped up their attacks to penetrations of any vulnerable target available to them, resulting in tens of thousands of Israeli citizens' and supporters' private data dumped onto the Web," wrote Andy Greenberg from Forbes.

Others said most of Anonymous' threats have been "hollow" so far.

"Today, Anon lacks the talent and semi-cohesion it once boasted across the net, and its most recent online crusade is an embarrassing reminder," Sam Biddle wrote for Gizmodo on Monday. "This is less a war than the hacker equivalent of egging someone's house and then smoking weed behind a Denny's."

The group is calling its campaign #OpIsrael.

"While the Israeli government almost certainly has backups of the aformentioned databases, these attacks as well as the defacements show Anonymous isn't just doing its usual spree of overloading target sites," writes another tech blog, TheNextWeb.

"OpIsrael appears to have gotten multiple hackers involved who are interested in doing actual damage, or at least something that is slightly more permanent than just a 404," which is the code that appears online when a website won't load.

Greenberg, from Forbes, makes the important point that none of this digital damage compares to the loss of life on the ground in the Middle East.

"Anonymous' attacks, of course, hardly register compared with the physical damage inflicted by both sides in the Gaza conflict," he wrote.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/19/tech/web/cyber-attack-israel-anonymous/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

At least someone is standing up to those as.sholes.

Ok?!

جيمس بوند: At least someone is standing up to those as.sholes.

hmmmm

annon is basically composed of /b/tards from 4chan which is basically a bunch of prepubescent spoilt w@nkers, pedophiles, lolcats, Jew hating, fascists, racist, manga loving, closet gays who are obsessed with inter-racial p0rn involving big fat black c0rks AND ALSO THEY TROLL A'LOT!

جيمس بوند: At least someone is standing up to those as.sholes.

Are you ok? Could you please write your name in English to enable us recognize Osama bin Laden when he enters NL.

misreal: hmmmm

What?
You and everybody know that's purly true! Killing children, journalists, women all in the name of protecting their citizens?
They are as.sholes!

جيمس بوند: At least someone is standing up to those as.sholes.

we shall see na

When will Israel and Palatine Palava Stop self... Dem no go rest?

9ja_I_hail:

Are you ok? Could you please write your name in English to enable us recognize Osama bin Laden when he enters NL.

Have you watched aljazeera lately?

جيمس بوند:
What?
You and everybody know that's purly true! Killing children, journalists, women all in the name of protecting their citizens?
They are as.sholes!

and HAMAS just wants to the oppurtunity to celebrate xmass in Tel Aviv.

You mushkins are always playing the victim

Cunt_Destroyer:

and HAMAS just wants to the oppurtunity to celebrate xmass in Tel Aviv.

You mushkins are always playing the victim

That means the kids are hamas?

جيمس بوند:
That means the kids are hamas?

kids that launch rockets?

Pls take your pity propaganda else where we have enought trouble with your muslim hoodlums here in Nigeria

جيمس بوند: At least someone is standing up to those as.sholes.

yeah, the useless blood thirsty Arab as.sholes.

I once had the opportunity to join the anonymous on their IRC(internet relay chat) channel. left the group after finding out that its full of israel haterz(syrian,egyptians,iranians,etc) ! You can only find few americans and i wuz the only nigeria in their IRC then. Major attacks are planned there,shutting down their IRC channel is the only way to stop them.

We all need to تعايش

CIA controls anonymous - I don't know who these clowns are trying to fool with their propaganda...

Israel needs to be contained before it self-destructs, the Zionists are biting more than they can chew... I'm with the Gazans on this one - and they have been under blockade a la biggest open prison in the world since 2007... That's a war crime against Israel!!

Off topic:

Why is Congo DR not in the media? - the Rwanda government of Paul Kagame needs to be stopped... I bet the UK and USA won't do anything because Rwanda is their client state, and that's the only way they can steal the vast minerals in Eastern Congo... If you have got a TV, mobile phone, laptop, iPad etc.. they bloods on Congolese people are on your hands... Congo DR is the richest country on this planet in terms of minerals, yet that country has NEVER known peace smh...

Cunt_Destroyer: annon is basically composed of /b/tards from 4chan which is basically a bunch of prepubescent spoilt w@nkers, pedophiles, lolcats, Jew hating, fascists, racist, manga loving, closet gays who are obsessed with inter-racial p0rn involving big fat black c0rks AND ALSO THEY TROLL A'LOT!

your brainwashed head is making me sick of seeing your post.you a deranged self-servicer who have lost it.go get a life nitwit. anonymous standing up for a just cause you here spewing crap.get lost libido always on the high dirty ass mofo.

shymexx: CIA controls anonymous - ..

stopped right there.

Once again shymex you failed me.

Cunt_Destroyer: annon is basically composed of /b/tards from 4chan which is basically a bunch of prepubescent spoilt w@nkers, pedophiles, lolcats, Jew hating, fascists, racist, manga loving, closet gays who are obsessed with inter-racial p0rn involving big fat black c0rks AND ALSO THEY TROLL A'LOT!

shymexx: CIA controls anonymous - ..

Cunt_Destroyer:

kids that launch rockets?

Pls take your pity propaganda else where we have enought trouble with your muslim hoodlums here in Nigeria

Just becasue your afraid to stand for your rights, doesn't make others do the same.
How can they be practicing slavery in this century?

جيمس بوند:
That means the kids are hamas?

no, the kids are not hamas. but israel returns fire in the direction of the source of attack.

Another thing to bear in mind is this "Anonymous" group like to talk big sometimes.

...and often stick their noses in stuff that have nothing to do with them - just for the attention.

okay