While Israel is considered a cyber power, Hamas has grown so powerful in cyber domain that it can now inflict huge damages to its rival.
In a report by Israel’s Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper used the phrase “Cyber Nightmare” to describe how Hamas is inflicting huge damages to Israel in a domain in which the latter is considered one of the most powerful in the world.
The report noted that in the course of gathering intelligence, Hamas obtained comprehensive dossiers on over 2,000 Israeli Air Force members, which Hamas titled “As revenge for the killers of [the] children of Gaza.”
“The full name, base or unit, ID number, cell phone number, email address, social media accounts, names of family members, and, in certain situations, passwords, license plates, credit card numbers, and bank account information are all included in the list,” the report noted.
Citing from a number of experts in cyber security domain, the report added that what Hamas did “illustrates how the failure of various Israeli entities to enforce cyber-security standards has allowed the group to obtain information that could expose thousands of Israeli settlers to a variety of threats, including doxing, revenge, persecution, being the target of advanced intelligence surveillance, and exposure to legal threats abroad.”
In this regard, Col. (res.) Dr. Gabi Siboni, an expert in cyber warfare, stated: “Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah want to obtain as much information as possible. The public in Israel is constantly exposed to influence operations, and if specific people can be targeted, it is even more dangerous.”
However, a number of other experts who spoke with Haaretz opposed the idea and claimed that what Hamas did was not a sophisticated job as it is “simple to target people or obtain more intelligence and access to secrets using the data, which also contains information on soldiers, friends, and family.”
It’s only the tip of the iceberg!
The above mentioned cyber-attack claimed to be carried out by Hamas this Sunday could be the least of Israel’s concerns as according to a report from Newsweek, “Hamas has acquired sophisticated offensive malware to target Israel’s critical infrastructure and institutions, and plans to create another front of the battle, this time in the cyber domain against the Jewish state.”
According to the report, Hamas has, in recent weeks, begun “renting sophisticated computer viruses” and using them to attack the Israeli Defense Forces and other Israeli government agencies.
“Using cheap malware known as “Information Thieves”, the group uses viruses to target Israeli computers by opening an email, uploading games or PDF documents in order to steal information from these computers,” the report further noted.
Alberto Casares, chief technology officer of California-based cybersecurity company Constella Intelligence, addressed the issue in his interview with the American newspaper and said: “This technology may have originated from Russia, China, Iran or North Korea.”
Asserting that Israel is certainly one of “the most sophisticated” countries in cyberspace, Casares also added that “Gaza’s communication infrastructure, however, has been almost completely destroyed in the last 10 months, let alone the internet speed required for any kind of sophisticated cyber-attack. Therefore, to be able to provide sufficient technological resources for cyber-attacks against Israel would be a wonderful thing if Hamas could really do it in the future.”
