Don’t believe hack claims against Mossad’s website, expert says

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.timesofisrael.com/dont-believe-hack-claims-against-mossads-website-expert-says/

By DAVID SHAMAH
The Times of Israel
March 24, 2013

In an unsettling announcement, the hacker group known as Anonymous and 
affiliates proclaimed over the weekend that they had broken into the Mossad’s 
servers and stolen the names and personal details of top IDF officials, 
politicians and, especially, Mossad agents. But those claims are inflated, to 
say the least, according to Middle East Internet expert Dr. Tal Pavel.

“Whatever they stole, it probably wasn’t secure details of top Israeli brass, 
either from the army or the Mossad,” Pavel told The Times of Israel.

Reports on several hacker websites said that Anonymous, along with the Turkish 
group The Red Hack and the Arab group Sector404, both of which are allied with 
Anonymous, managed to break into the Mossad’s public website and steal several 
Excel spreadsheets containing the details of over 34,000 “Mossad agents.” The 
files list names of the alleged agents, email addresses (private and work), 
home addresses and other identification information. The hack is just the first 
of a major new front in Anonymous’ ongoing #OpIsrael campaign, which aims to 
destroy Israel’s cyber-presence.

But whatever it was that the hackers thought they got, it wasn’t a list of 
Mossad agents, said Pavel. “There is no doubt that they got some identification 
information about Israelis, but the claims that they hacked the Mossad site and 
got a list of Mossad agents is most likely psychological warfare, and not a 
hack into an important database,” said Pavel.

[...]

______________________________________________
Attend #HITB2013AMS April 8th - 11th in Amsterdam.
Featuring over 42 international speakers and keynotes
by Bob Lord and Edward Schwartz http://conference.hitb.org