Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Photo: Wiki Commons.

Calling themselves the “IDF Team”, a group of Israeli hackers shut down the websites of Saudi Arabia’s  stock exchange (Tadawul), along with UAE’s exchange (ADX) on Tuesday.

The trouble seems to have begun on January 3rd when a Saudi hacker, or team of hackers, stole thousands of of people’s credit card information, all belonging to Israeli citizens.

On January 11th, an Israeli hacker responded by publishing hundreds of Saudi credit card numbers, along with email passwords and other personal information.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Saudi hacker(s) hit back on Monday, January 16th, shutting down the websites of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and El Al Airlines.

“EL AL is aware that for the past two weeks a cyber war has raged against Israel. The company closely monitored Saudi hacker activity and took precautions on the activity of the company’s website,” a company spokesman told the Algemeiner.

Also on Monday, a hacker calling himself “Hannibal” posted tens of thousands of email and Facebook user information, claiming they all belonged to Arab citizens. A note from Hannibal said:

“State of Israel, not to worry, you’re in the hands of the world’s best hacker that I am.  I will continue to support the government of Israel will continue to attack the Arab countries.  In addition, I received thousands of emails helpless Arabs, who are begging me to stop publishing the Facebook accounts because it violates their browsing experience.  I have about 30 million e-mails of Arabs with passwords I’ll post them throughout my life and my personal list is growing every day hundreds of thousands of emails.”

When the Algemeiner asked Hannibal whether he or she is worried about causing physical danger amongst Saudis and Israelis, the hacker said, “We’ll see, I personally believe that this year is very crucial.

Asked about the significance of the name “Hannibal”, the hacker replied, “I admire the character Hannibal Lecter and his movies. The figure of genius”.