Cyber Incident Victim: The Temple synagogue
Date:
Jan 2021
Location:
United States of America
Summary
A cyber-attack disrupted a live-streamed Shabbat service at an Atlanta synagogue during an event honoring Martin Luther King Jr., preventing online access for attendees as a prominent U.S. Senator-elect delivered a sermon. Malicious actors overloaded the website with traffic, causing an extended outage that lasted over an hour and reportedly impacted the service provider’s network of client synagogues nationwide. The synagogue’s leadership suggested the incident may have been motivated by racial and religious intolerance, citing the historic partnership with a predominantly African American church and the institution’s prior targeting in a mid-20th-century bombing. Authorities are investigating the attack.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On January 15, 2021, during a live-streamed Shabbat service honoring Martin Luther King Jr. Day, The Temple synagogue in Atlanta experienced a cyber-attack that disrupted its online broadcast. The incident occurred while US Senator-elect Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, was delivering a sermon to a joint congregation. Malicious actors targeted the synagogue's website by deploying "malicious user agents" that continuously loaded the site with the objective of forcing it offline. This denial-of-service style attack overwhelmed the Temple's web hosting provider, rendering the live stream inaccessible to congregants attempting to join via the official website. The synagogue's executive director, Mark Jacobson, was notified by their unnamed service provider that this constituted the "largest-ever attack" against the provider's network of client synagogues, impacting websites nationwide. Although access was eventually restored for other affected sites, The Temple's website remained offline for over an hour into the service, causing significant disruption to religious observances.
The Temple's president, Kent Alexander, communicated details of the incident to congregants in a letter dated January 16, apologizing to those unable to access the service and confirming an ongoing investigation by authorities. Alexander contextualized the attack within the synagogue's history as a target for racially and religiously motivated violence, referencing the 1958 bombing of its north entrance by the "Confederate Underground." He theorized the cyber-attack was perpetrated by "a racist and anti-Semitic group or individual" aiming to silence the collaborative MLK Day service between the predominantly Jewish congregation and Warnock's historically African American church. The disruption occurred during a decade-old annual tradition hosted at The Temple, founded in 1867. While technical specifics of mitigation were not disclosed, the service provider managed to restore full website functionality after extended downtime. Financial or data loss impacts were not reported, though the incident highlighted persistent security challenges for religious institutions.