Montreal English newspaper website targetted by anti-Israel hackers

MONTREAL – The weekly Suburban newspaper was hacked early Wednesday morning.

Anyone who visited their website were greeted with this message:

View image in full screen

The hackers claim their mission is “to destroy the Israeli network and preserve the internet for the Palestinians facing persecution by the Israeli government.”

Suburban Editor-In-Chief Beryl Wajsman called the police immediately and told Global News that even though they’re not surprised by the threats, they aren’t taking any chances.

“We get death threats all the time,” he said. 

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: <strong>"We get death threats all the time," he said. </strong>

“It doesn’t bother us, neither do these but this one looked professionally done so we reported it.”

Last September, he received a message stating he “would be made into soap.”

“Whenever you advocate a position and whenever you don’t engage in moral relativism, you’re going to get push back.” 

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: <strong>"Whenever you advocate a position and whenever you don't engage in moral relativism, you're going to get push back." </strong>

Investigators spent the morning looking into the attack and trying to determine where it may have come from.

The supposed radical Islamist group calls itself Laakel-En-Person and has hacked multiple websites around the world.

Internet security expert, Terry Cutler explains that tracking these type of hacks is nearly impossible.

“A lot of the times these attackers go through a proxy system, they can be coming in from Ontario and make it look like they’re coming from Pakistan,” he said.

“It’s like breaking into a house and on the way out vacuuming their footprints.” 

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: <strong>"It's like breaking into a house and on the way out vacuuming their footprints." </strong>

He mentions that it looks like the same kind of attack made on the Terrasse-Vaudreuil town website.

READ MORE: Terrasse-Vaudreuil town website apparently hacked by MECA

The Surburban website has since been restored to normal.

The newspaper’s employees insist despite the many threats they receive, they don’t plan on changing the way they do things.

“We’re not changing the way we work or the positions we take.”