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"Cyberattacks were part of the recent deadly bombing campaign between Israel and Gaza from the beginning, as hackers aligned with both sides targeted the opposition's websites and servers. However, cybersecurity firm Cloudflare noticed something interesting when a cease-fire was declared: the fighting's focus moved from the physical space into the digital arena.\nThe graph above shows the phenomenon clearly. The data are based on attacks against CloudFlare's clients, which are on both sides of the conflict. CloudFlare was asked to strip the Y-Axis data to protect clients' privacy.\n\"That was really fascinating, when you had a cease-fire in the physical world it actually translated into fighting in the cyber world,\" said CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince. \n\"If I were speculating, these conflicts go through different phases, and in this phase you're stopping trying to blow people up, and now you're trying to win public opinion,\" he added. \"And those tools mean you want to get your message out about whatever it is the public should be hearing about, and you want to not let the other side get its message out. So it shifts from a war of bullets to a war of ideas, and the offensive weapon in a war of ideas these days is a denial of service attack.\"\nSEE ALSO: 25 Must-Follow Twitter Accounts for Gaza-Israel Conflict Updates\nPrince sees his company's role in the conflict as something of a cyber Red Cross.\n\"It's been an interesting position we've been in, but we've been proud of our systems and our team and being able to help both sides at least publish the ideas they have,\" he said. \"Our network can't be used to launch an attack, so it's not like we're supplying bullets to either side. But we are supplying the flak jackets to both sides, and that's been a very humbling experience to be in the middle of.\"\nWhile Prince couldn't attribute the attacks to any group or groups, he did bring up the possibility of hackers outside either geographic location targeting Israeli or Palestinian servers. We've seen that kind of activity before, speaking to the rise of a third \"cyber front\" in real-world conflicts across the world.\nWhat does the \"cyber front\" mean for militaries and governments across the world? Share your thoughts in the comments.\nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, EduardoLuzzatti"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/12/05/cyberattacks-gaza-israel/>