The United Arab Emirates has witnessed cyber attacks after entering a peace deal with Israel in August with Iran as possible suspect.
This was made known by a statement by the Arab states cybersecurity head on Sunday saying the country was the target of cyber attacks after establishing formal ties with Israel.
The UAE had in August broke with decades of Arab policy of boycotting Israel when it agreed to forge ties with Israel in a move that angered Palestinians and some Muslim states and communities. Bahrain and Sudan have followed suit.
The peace deal which was championed by the U.S. President Donald Trump has received applaud and commendation from many quarters.
‘Our relationship, for example, with the normalisation with Israel really opened a whole huge attack from some other activists against the UAE,’ Mohamed Hamad al-Kuwaiti said during an onstage interview at a conference in Dubai. Kuwaiti said the financial sector was targeted by the hackers but did not elaborate.
He did not say if any of the attacks were successful or not. He also did not provide details on who the perpetrators were.
He also told the conference that the number of cyber attacks in the UAE increased sharply after the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Kuwaiti said traditionally many attacks in the region originate from Iran, without specifying who is behind them. Iran has also said that it has been a victim of hacking.
AFRICA TODAY NEWS, NEW YORK