Israeli TV’s Eurovision webcast hijacked by hackers. Hamas blamed

KAN, the national TV broadcaster in Israel, has blamed Hamas hackers for briefly hijacking its webcast last night of the Eurovision Song Contest semi-finals.

Although the TV broadcast of the cheesy singing competition, which attracts competitors representing countries across Europe (and, bizarrely, Australia), was not impacted, those watching via KAN’s website had their viewing of power ballads, ethnic rhythms and bubblegum pop interrupted.

Not by a half-decent song (this is Eurovision, after all). but by what Reuters describes as “animated images of explosions” in the host city of Tel Aviv.

Sign up to our newsletter
Security news, advice, and tips.

The TV station’s boss downplayed the attack:

“We know that at a certain stage there was an attempt, apparently by Hamas, to commandeer our digital broadcast,” Kan CEO, Eldad Koblenz, told Israel’s Army Radio.

“But I am happy to say that within a few minutes we managed to assume control over this phenomenon.”

Screenshots shared on social media show messages that were allegedly displayed, including warnings that Israelis should head to shelters to protect against a missile attack.

If it was indeed Hamas who messed with the much-beloved Eurovision Song Contest then that’s a serious escalation* of hostilities. People are crazy about Eurovision – seriously, you don’t want to mess with it.

Lord knows how Israel might respond to this. Just last week the country launched an airstrike against what they claimed was a building housing Hamas’s cyberwarfare HQ in Gaza.

If you want to hear more about hacking attacks Hamas has perpetrated against Israel, be sure to listen to this episode of the “Smashing Security” podcast:

* I’m being sarcastic.

Found this article interesting? Follow Graham Cluley on Twitter or Mastodon to read more of the exclusive content we post.

Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.