Israeli media reported this Wednesday that in what experts called ’the biggest data leak in Israel’s history’, anti-Israeli hackers have released large amounts of classified Israeli data.
According to a report published by Israel’s Haaretz this Wednesday, anti-Israeli hackers have released large amounts of classified data from different governmental bodies in Israel. These disclosures include publishing tens of thousands of sensitive documents and emails stolen from Israeli institutions, including the Ministry of Justice.
According to the report, “cyber-attacks against Israel, which began on October 7, 2023, have targeted several institutions, including military and defense headquarters, hospitals, and government ministries. Israel’s cyber security infrastructure has been affected by the extent of these attacks and according to an Israeli source, the true extent of the damage to Israel’s security and economy caused by these revelations is not yet fully known.
“Despite huge investments in cyber security defense measures, this new revelation against Israel is possibly the biggest in Israel’s history as it involves the unprecedented theft of thousands of gigabytes of all kinds of sensitive information from various institutions in the country,” the source added.
The leaked information appeared on platforms such as Telegram, after which the Israeli authorities made several attempts to remove them. However, due to the lack of strict policies in Telegram regarding the display of sensitive content, these efforts have faced many difficulties. Besides, the hackers have been using decentralized hosting services and “onion domains” which obscure the source of the data and obstruct takedown efforts.
“Telegram emerged at the start of the war as a key platform utilized by Hamas’ information warfare against Israel, one Israel was unable to properly address, lacking both monitoring capabilities and an understanding of the platform,” Haaretz noted in the report.
Israel at war with Telegram!
Addressing Israel’s hard stance against Telegram following the historic data leak, American political commentator Jackson Hinkle says that right after anti-Israel hackers published the information on Telegram, the founder of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, who had refused Israel’s request to censor them, was detained by the French authorities.
“Anti-Israel hackers who stole gigabytes of sensitive Israeli data have been publishing the classified information on TELEGRAM. Telegram refused Israel’s request to censor them. Today, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in France and now faces 20 years in prison,” Hinkle said in a post on X.
