The Cyber Flood Al-Aqsa Group announces in a video on its Telegram account the penetration of the Israeli Ministry of Defense (social media)
While gunfire and explosions are echoing on the battlefront in the Gaza Strip following the Israeli ground offensive there, which has not yet resulted in a clear victory, a cyber war is being waged in secret and without the noise of a cyber war with Internet, communications and servers in which the Israelis have no clear superiority.
IKEA and Israeli companies hacked
A hacker group calling itself Cyber Toufan Operations claimed responsibility for hacking a number of Israeli websites last weekend and stealing several files from web hosting company Signature-IT, whose clients include businesses such as Ace, Shefa Online, Home Center, Auto Depot and IKEA.
A video also appeared on the group's Telegram channel in which the hackers stated that they managed to penetrate the Israeli Defense Ministry and obtained millions of data on reservists and the Israeli army.
A report by Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet confirmed a massive breach on SignatureIT's servers. According to information obtained by Ynet, the stolen files include tens of thousands of employee and customer details and details of transactions carried out by the company. It is clear that this action was not done for ransom but with the intention of harming, according to the report.
The Yedioth Ahronoth report said the group, which expressed support for the Islamist group Hamas, managed to steal data files totaling about 16 gigabytes, apparently stolen from the database of various sites stored on the company's servers.
Signature IT is one of the largest hosting companies, and its clients include government offices, organizations and large companies.
Information security firm Check Point says the event could unfold over several days, and the extent of its damage remains unclear. "We know that the hack itself was on Signature IT. The leak included a database file."
A screenshot from the group's video showing a photo of one of the soldiers who were reviewed in the clip with information about them (social media)
The file appears to contain information about a virtual store with about 2.2 million users who have made purchases on the site.
From an analysis of hacking data by Jackie Altal, CEO of consulting firm Yahav Cyber Solutions and director of cyber forensics at the academic college, it appears to have published approximately 2.5 to 3 million records containing at a minimum names, email addresses, phone numbers and addresses, some also containing the last four digits of the credit card, as well as additional details provided when ordering deliveries. It was not immediately clear whether full credit card details or other data had been leaked.
It should be noted that most corporate websites were used for marketing purposes only, except for sites where products could be purchased online.
Penetrating Mod
In the video posted by the Cyber Flood Al-Aqsa Group on its Telegram account, Mumham talked about the group's success in penetrating the Israeli Ministry of Defense, reviewing a number of information about the Israeli military division in northern Gaza.
In the video, the masked man began by reviewing the names of Israeli soldiers in the North Gaza Division, their military ranks, service numbers and places of residence.
The information mentioned by the masked man was not limited to Israeli soldiers, but also that there were dual national soldiers from several countries, including Canada, Belgium and Ukraine, whose information and photos were obtained by the Islamic Resistance.
A screenshot from a video broadcast by the Al-Aqsa Cyber Flood Group showing information about a soldier of the North Gaza Division (social media)
Racists and patients
In another video, a masked member of the Cyber Flood Al-Aqsa Division appeared to talk about "very special" information regarding the evaluations of Israeli soldiers by their superiors, and medical information about them. The masked man stated that the information they obtained shows how the occupation army deals with its soldiers and how to classify and evaluate them.
When presenting some names, the masked man said that the officers responsible for the soldiers put the phrase "black" next to the names of some soldiers, in order to indicate the color of his skin and that he is of African origin, which reflects the racist view within the occupation army of black people.
The masked man also reviewed the names of some soldiers whose files contained embarrassing information about their personal lives and mental illnesses that their commanders mentioned in their secret files obtained by the group in the latest hack.
It is these soldiers who put their psychological state next to their names and clearly indicated that some of them suffer from serious psychological problems.
Video footage released by the Al-Aqsa Flood Cyber Group shows information about the penetration of the Israeli Ministry of Defense (social media)
Great penetration capabilities
Neither the Defense Ministry nor Israeli media channels have confirmed the hacking of the ministry as they did in the hacking of the hosting company and its corporate and commercial customers.
Although the attack on Signature IT affects dozens of websites in Israel including government offices, where a number of government ministries have purchased a service from this company to build a side site whose information is public and publicly available, a major breakthrough such as that of the Israeli Ministry of Defense means that the group has great potential.
The identity of the attackers has not been disclosed. However, Ilan Musleh, director of the information and cyber security department at Binah Computer Communications, said: "One form of Hamas's deadly attack on Israel also came in cyberattacks in the digital space, apparently with the help of Iran, which has the capabilities of a state to carry out cyberattacks on organizations, companies and individuals, and uses an electronic proxy (a reference to the Cyber Flood Al-Aqsa Group).
"In times of crisis, the threat of cyber attacks increases," Musleh said. This was confirmed by Check Point, which reported that in mid-October there was an 18% increase in cyberattacks on Israel. At the same time, Israel's economy is partially blocked, due to hundreds of thousands forced out of work due to the recruitment of hundreds of thousands of reservists.
Musleh added that the growing cyber threat and manpower shortage are affecting Israel's cyberspace, where the defense systems of organizations and companies pose significant weaknesses in preparing against attacks and the difficulty of detecting them early. Apart from the potential economic damage, awareness is growing among organizations about the damage to the image embodied by cyberattacks.
Musleh stressed that "no organization or company is immune from cyber incidents, so the focus in the contemporary cyber defense methodology is on identifying the incident as soon as possible, dealing with it and returning to normal in the shortest possible time, and besides raising awareness of the issue among employees, it is important to adopt comprehensive solutions that provide a proactive and multi-layered security envelope for cyber threats and attacks."
Source : Al Jazeera + Websites