Saudis deny stock exchange website infiltrated by Israeli hackers

Saudi Arabian authorities on Wednesday denied claims that Israeli hackers had crippled the website of the oil-rich country's capital market, saying the system was operating normally.

Israeli hackers claimed they brought down the websites of both the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) and the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) on Tuesday, in the latest episode of a continuing cyber war between hackers in Israel and other countries.

	A trader at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
	Photo by: Bloomberg

The Saudi authorities, in a statement issued Wednesday, said that sophisticated security protection was being enforced.

The Israeli hackers, who go by the name IDF-Team, said on Tuesday they were able to paralyze the Tadawul website, while causing significant delays to the ADX exchange site.

The hackers wrote that the attack came in response to the “pathetic” hacking of Israeli sites on Monday, in which a group of hackers calling themselves the “nightmare group" caused disruption to the El Al and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange websites.

On Tuesday, another pro-Israel hacker also published a list of 30,000 e-mail addresses and Facebook passwords of "helpless Arabs" on a popular hacking site.

The hacker, who goes by Hannibal, wrote that his actions - which began Friday - are a "counter-attack" following the publication of Israeli credit card details on the Internet by a reportedly Saudi hacker, known as OxOmar.

Tariq al-Sudani, a prominent Kuwaiti religious figure, has also called on Arab hackers to join forces in an "e-Jihad" against Israel, according to regional media reports.

The cyber war reportedly broke out earlier this month when OxOmar, exposed the credit card numbers of thousands of Israelis online.