Suspected Cyber Attack: Nationwide Tech Issue Prevents Credit Card Use Across Israel

By Arutz-7
Posted on 10/29/24 | News Source: Arutz-7

Many Israelis on Tuesday morning discovered that they were unable to use their credit cards.

The SHVA company, which deals in automated bank services and which is responsible for credit card transactions in Israel, said, "The national payment system for credit cards is working as usual, and it is processing thousands of transactions each minute. The company has located and is dealing with the difficulty providers are having when connected to the internet from abroad, to the payment system."

At the same time, the Caspit company updated restaurant owners that due to a malfunction with SHVA, the company which manages credit card transactions, there were disruptions in the completion of transactions.

The National Cyber Directorate was updated of the situation during the morning hours. Experts in the field believe that the malfunction was caused by a low-level DDoS cyber attack which overwhelms the entry of servers, thus causing them to collapse.

As part of its monitoring activities, SHVA disconnected all connections from abroad. After the disconnection, most of the providers were able to offer service - something which strengthens the suspicion that the reason for the malfunction was a DDoS attack. However, there is not yet any official confirmation of such an attack.

Later, the company said that "the national credit card payment system is working properly and fully, and since 9:50 a.m. connection of all bodies in the system has been possible. At this stage, over 8,000 transactions are processed and approved each minute."