Cyber attack on UJIA centenary event being investigated

A cyber-attack that sabotaged a UJIA event featuring the Israeli president has been reported by the charity to the Charity Commission.

The British Jewish charity’s event was targeted last Wednesday evening, with hundreds of participants kicked off a video platform or prevented from joining the virtual event.

A spokesperson for UJIA said it “reported it to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Charity Commission and CST (Community Security Trust), and are conducting an independent investigation.”

CST confirmed it had been reported, saying “we are in contact with UJIA to investigate what happened and who may be behind it.”

In a statement released last Thursday, UJIA said it was “incredibly disappointed” it had been targeted.

It said after the event had already started, “some of the 1,000+ registered guests already logged in, people began to be logged off the platform and were unable to log back in due to their registrations becoming disabled. Others who had yet to log in and whose registrations were also disabled were prevented from entering the platform altogether. Approximately 270 households were able to experience the event as planned.”

UJIA moved to reassure those affected by the attack that “the only information that might have been accessible would have been email addresses of those who had registered. However, we have been assured that whilst the attack resulted in a temporary impact on the event log-in process, no data has been compromised.”

The event, which included a speech by President Rivlin, and a performance from Israeli singer-songwriter Idan Raichel, is now available on YouTube.