Israel's cyber chief counts 4,800 hostile incidents in one month

In an interview with the German daily Die Welt, relayed by Reuters on 29 June 2026, Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Karadi, director general of the Israel National Cyber Directorate, said Israel recorded about 4,800 hostile cyber incidents in June 2026, against about 1,600 in June 2025, during the earlier round of the Israel-Iran conflict. In 2025 the directorate handled more than 26,000 attacks, a 55% rise over 2024.

Targets ranged from critical infrastructure and central organisations to small and medium-sized businesses, among them law practices and accounting firms, and the public. Karadi said that attacks on critical infrastructure had so far been fended off, while companies that were easier to breach often had their systems wiped. He described Iran's cyber apparatus as "a multi-layered system": full cyber divisions inside the IRGC and the military, and below them civilians and activists who hack out of conviction or for pay. Digital propaganda, including AI-generated animation videos, is part of the same campaign, he said. "There's no ceasefire in cyberspace."

Why it matters The layered model Karadi describes, state units above a pool of aligned hacktivists and hired hands, is why attribution and threat-actor research matter more than malware signatures in this theatre. The groups that wipe a small accounting firm are not the ones that probe a power grid, and defending against one tells you little about the other.