Cyber-attack against Israel: Hacking number of Israeli websites and stealing files from hosting company

A hacker group calling itself “Cyber ​​Toufan Operations” claimed responsibility for hacking into a number of Israeli websites last weekend and stealing several files from the web hosting company Signature-IT, whose clients include commercial companies 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 were able to penetrate the Israeli Ministry of Defense and obtain millions of data about reserve soldiers and the Israeli army.

A report by Yedioth Ahronoth and Ynet confirmed that there had been a massive hack on the servers of Signature IT.

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’s clear that this procedure was not carried out for the purpose of ransom, but rather with the intention of harm, according to the report.

The Yedioth Ahronoth report said that the group that expressed its support for the Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” was able to steal data files totaling about 16 gigabytes, and it appears that they were stolen from the database of various sites stored on the company’s servers.

Signature IT is considered one of the largest hosting companies, and its clients include government offices, organizations and large companies.

Information security company Check Point says this event could unfold over several days, and the scope of its damage remains unclear.

Yedioth Ahronoth added, “We know that the same hack was on Signature IT… The leak included a database file”.

The file appears to contain information about a virtual store that includes 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 that approximately 2.5 to 3 million records were published containing at a minimum name, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Phones and addresses, some of which also contain the last four digits of the credit card, as well as additional details provided when ordering deliveries.

It’s not yet clear whether full credit card details or other data were leaked.

It should be noted that most companies’ websites were used for marketing purposes only, with the exception of sites where products could be purchased online.

A masked man spoke in the video by the group on its Telegram account about the group’s success in penetrating the Israeli Ministry of Defense, reviewing a number of information about the Israeli North Gaza Military Division.

In the video, the masked man began reviewing the names of the Israeli soldiers in the North Gaza Division, their military ranks, service numbers, and their places of residence.

The information mentioned by the masked man wasn’t limited to Israeli soldiers.

Rather, he mentioned that there were soldiers with dual citizenship from several countries, including Canada, Belgium, and Ukraine, whose information and pictures the Islamic Resistance obtained.

In another video, a masked man appeared speaking about very private information regarding the evaluations of Israeli soldiers by their superiors, and medical information concerning them.

The masked man stated that the information they obtained shows how the occupation army deals with its soldiers and how they are classified and evaluated.

When presenting some of the names, the masked man said that the officers responsible for the soldiers put the word black next to the names of some of the soldiers, in order to indicate the color of his skin and that he was of African origin, which reflects the racist view within the occupation army of people with dark skin.

The masked man also reviewed the names of some soldiers whose files contained embarrassing information about their personal lives and the mental illnesses they suffer from, and their commanders mentioned them in their secret files that the group obtained in the recent hack.

Some of these soldiers put their psychological state next to their names and clearly indicated that some of them suffer from serious psychological problems.

The Ministry of Defense or the Israeli media channels didn’t confirm the incident of hacking the ministry, as they did in the incident of hacking the hosting company and its corporate and commercial clients.

Although the attack on Signature IT affects dozens of websites in Israel, including government offices, as a number of government ministries purchased a service from this company to build a side site whose information is public and available to the public, a major hack such as the hacking of the Israeli Ministry of Defense means that the group has great potential.

Meanwhile, the identity of the attackers hasn’t been known.