Picture credit: Thomas Hanses (EBU)

“It was about as close as you can get without it going to air.”

That’s how Yigal Unna — the Director General of the Israeli National Cyber Directorate — describes an attempted cyber attack during the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv.

Speaking to Nine News Australia, he revealed that the cyber attack would have seen footage of a terror attack broadcast to hundreds of millions around the globe. Authorities managed to block it with just a second to spare.

His disclosure comes during Cyber Week at Tel Aviv University and was meant to illustrate the increasing threats that large-scale events like Eurovision will face in the years ahead.

“Mega events attract a lot of attention from all over the world and people want to abuse this attention,” he told the Australian news outlet.

Semi-Final Cyber Attack

Authorities in Israel were on high alert for the grand final after hackers successfully disrupted the domestic broadcast of Semi-Final 1.

As we reported shortly after the show on May 14, messages briefly appeared during the digital broadcast of the show in Israel. They were meant to whip-up hysteria among viewers and, presumably, foreigners visiting the country.

One message said, “Israel Is NOT Safe. You Will See!” Another said, “Risk of Missile Attack. Please Take Shelter.”

The broadcaster said that it “quickly” corrected the situation. The primary broadcast through television was unaffected.

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allex
allex
4 years ago

These dumbass boycotters and terrorists …. I’m going to get so many dislikes. Well it’s over.

Ethan1994
Ethan1994
4 years ago

And what would have happened if they hadn’t stopped it?

Purple Mask
Purple Mask
4 years ago
Reply to  Ethan1994

The article says: “…the cyber attack would have seen footage of a terror attack broadcast to hundreds of millions around the globe.”
Either that, or someone could have pulled the plug on the broadcast entirely – I am assuming that it must have been a back-up plan.

Jeff
Jeff
4 years ago
Reply to  Purple Mask

Local broadcaster KAN has no control on the EBU broadcast. EBU is a company that is specialized in broadcasting nation wide major events. If they manage to live broadcast (DAV) and livestream the Tour de France at the finish on top of a mountain, I’m sure they can manage a Youtube livestream. Again: why would they rely on KAN for the livestream so how could Israeli ‘officials’ or KAN security team prevent an attack on the international livestream? https://www.eurovision.net/products/services/contribute-and-distribute/streaming-services?filter=all By the way, as the Israeli internet is censored, internet went through Turkish providers for the production and press. So the… Read more »

Maya G
Maya G
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeff

Israeli internet isn’t censored. Turkish internet, however, is. Google it.
The threat wasn’t monitored by KAN, but by a government agency specializing in cybersecurity. The EBU make the final decision, but they were working closely with the Israeli authorities and would probably prefer to pull the plug rather than have all of their viewers see a gruesome terror attack, if it came to that.

Jeff
Jeff
4 years ago
Reply to  Maya G

I was there, my public IP address, on the production network, was Turkish. EBU has a closed network for broadcast, also for internet streaming (you can Google this, but I’ll save you the time: https://tech.ebu.ch/groups/os

Or you can trust an unnamed source talking to some outlet on the other side of the world…

Maybe ‘censoring’ is the wrong world of choice, it is not really blocking specific sites and content, rather screening and influencing. (You don’t want any local interception and get the data right to the internet backbone)
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-israel-and-its-partisans-work-to-censor-the-internet/5631837/amp

Jeff
Jeff
4 years ago

Why on earth would EBU send the livestream through the local broadcaster to Youtube? So instead of using their high tech OB trucks next to the venue they would send the stream first over the internet to KAN and KAN would route it to Youtube, on the the internet? This doesn’t make any sense.

If the attack was locally targetted at KAN, how could it have affected hundreds of million viewers?

Please verify your sources as this fake news spreads useless fear amongst fans planning to attend Eurovision.

Raoul
Raoul
4 years ago
Reply to  Jeff

*deleted*

europe
4 years ago

omy god

Roelof Meesters
Roelof Meesters
4 years ago

Yikes that would have been a TOTAL DISASTER. Let’s pray that cyber-attackers wont get into ESC 2020/ wont attempt to get into ESC 2020.

FYROM
FYROM
4 years ago

Cyprus does not take part in eurovision! South Cyprus does !

Joe
Joe
4 years ago
Reply to  FYROM

Y’all are a broken record.

Cocooo
Cocooo
4 years ago
Reply to  FYROM

Only place in the world where “North Cyprus” is recognised, is by Turkey… lol

Joe
Joe
4 years ago
Reply to  Cocooo

Also: if you’re the kind of person who still insists on calling North Macedonia by its old name, which would probably imply that you are an overzealous Greek patriot, would you really be that annoyed that the (internationally-recognized) Greek part of Cyprus competes in Eurovision as opposed to the Turkish part? You aren’t Greek or Turkish or anything. You are a troll. And I’ve called you out. So get going.

James
James
4 years ago
Reply to  Cocooo

Technically, the south Cypriot government represents the whole of the island.

Turkish Cypriots who have been in Cyprus before the country was divided in the 1970’s are considered Cypriot citizens (and by extension EU citizens) although they need to jump through hoops across the border to get their passports done and all.

Einar
Einar
4 years ago

Wow, hatari were right…

Sal
Sal
4 years ago
Reply to  Einar

who?

Lars
Lars
4 years ago

Are they sure it’s not Madonna’s live performance

Efraim
Efraim
4 years ago
Reply to  Lars

I think we just found our #1 contender for burn of the year.

ESC LOU
ESC LOU
4 years ago

don’t think grim is exactly the right word to describe this

Joe
Joe
4 years ago

And here I thought the Iceland debacle was the most dramatic thing that happened in the final. This would’ve been an absolute disaster. Glad it was stopped.