Cause of Israel's near nationwide blackout unknown
The Israel Electric Corporation confirmed the cause of the outages "was definitively not a cyberattack."
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFIsrael Electric Corporation(photo credit: Courtesy)
There were power outages across Israel early Friday morning leaving whole neighborhoods across the country in the dark. Some sections of Highway 20 were also affected and traffic lights were shut down in the center of the country.Major cities affected included Jerusalem, Haifa, Beersheba, and Netanya.The Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) said that the outages were due to an imbalance in the system and that despite fears the cause of the outages "was definitively not a cyberattack."Despite this, security officials told N12 that a cyberattack should not be ruled out as the possible cause of the outages.Israel's National Cyber Security Authority later confirmed that the power outage was not caused by a cyberattack, 13 News reported.The IEC explained that the loss of power was caused by a problem with the conduction system that caused a power station in the south of Israel to stop working creating a chain reaction.The IEC's hotline and website were inaccessible around the time of the outages and the IEC site posted an announcement saying it was down for maintenance. It is unclear if there is connection between the crash and the outages, according to Ynet.Despite IEC's assurance that power would return within 15 minutes of the beginning of the outages, residents of Jerusalem, Ashdod, Daliat al-Carmel, Rishon Lezion, Givatayim, Ramat Gan, Herzliya, Kfar Saba and other cities told Ynet News that the outages lasted much longer.
