Iranian cyberattacks against Israel have tripled since last year, according to the country’s cyber chief, who says Tehran has turned its sprawling hacking ecosystem into a more coordinated wartime operation.
Speaking to German newspaper Die Welt, Yossi Karadi, director general of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, said Israeli authorities recorded around 4,800 hostile cyber incidents in June, up from roughly 1,600 during the same month in 2025. The attacks are said to have targeted critical infrastructure, government bodies, businesses, and professional services firms.
“So far, and hopefully it stays that way, we’ve managed to fend off attacks on critical infrastructure,” Karadi said. While Israel’s most sensitive networks had remained operational, he said other organisations had seen systems wiped by destructive attacks.
Karadi said the rise wasn’t just down to more attacks. Iran’s hacking groups are working together more closely than before, sharing intelligence, infrastructure, and techniques, he said. He also claimed Tehran had enlisted ransomware gangs and hackers outside Iran to bolster its cyber operations.
“There is no ceasefire in cyberspace,” he said.
Karadi also warned that artificial intelligence is accelerating the pace of cyber conflict, making attacks easier to launch while giving defenders new tools to detect and respond to them. Rather than trying to predict what an adversary intends to do, organisations should focus on preparing for what they are capable of, he said.
It’s worth noting that the figures shared by Karadi have not been independently verified. Neither Die Welt nor the Israel National Cyber Directorate published details of how the incidents were counted or what qualifies as a “hostile cyber incident”.
The Israel National Cyber Directorate did not immediately respond to Resilience Media’s questions.
Karadi’s comments come as cyber operations have become a regular feature of the conflict between Israel and Iran. Both sides accuse the other of launching attacks against government networks, businesses, and critical infrastructure. Public reporting has linked Iran-aligned groups to espionage, phishing, and disruptive campaigns, while suspected Israel-linked actors have been blamed for destructive attacks on Iranian banks, fuel systems, and industrial sites.
Iran has repeatedly denied carrying out offensive cyber campaigns against other countries while accusing Israel and its allies of targeting Iranian networks. For all the disagreement over who launched what, neither side appears to view cyberspace as a secondary front anymore.
