Israeli soldiers during military operations in Gaza, July 17, 2024. (Credit: AFP)
The personal information of over 2,000 Israeli soldiers has been leaked online, compiled by Hamas, reports the Israeli daily Haaretz. The files, ranging from a few pages to several hundred, include soldiers' contact details, unit assignments, ID numbers, social media profiles, family member names, and in some cases, passwords, license plates, and banking information. Some of these soldiers hold "sensitive positions" within the army, according to the media.
The Palestinian movement reportedly gathered these details through intelligence operations involving online leaks following hacks, likely from non-military servers, and publicly available social media data. These were compiled using an automated tool called "profiler," which collects, cross-references, and merges open-source intelligence to create detailed target profiles. The title under which the files were published suggests they are intended as « revenge against the child killers of Gaza. »
Hamas's Usual Style
The files had been circulating online for several months and were recently made public after being shared with an international group of investigative journalists, led by Paper Trail Media in collaboration with German weekly Die Zeit and broadcaster ZDF, Austrian daily Der Standard, and Haaretz, explains the Israeli media. Aymenn al-Tamimi, a researcher and jihadism expert contacted by Haaretz, believes the documents are authentic and resemble Hamas's typical productions.
An Israeli security source confirmed to the daily that the files originated from Hamas. This source, not an expert in cybersecurity or data protection, deemed them « not dangerous » for the soldiers or Israel. However, other sources who spoke to Haaretz noted that the shared data could easily be used to target the soldiers or obtain further information about them. « Even if the information itself is not sensitive, it is troubling to find details about soldiers' families, » said Ari Ben Am, a social media researcher cited by Haaretz.
Possible Iranian Involvement?
It is unclear who exactly leaked these files online, but they seem to have been available on hacking platforms since at least December, according to Haaretz. Some information appears to come from Atid College, a private Israeli school hacked by Iran in May. The reports also contain data from other sources, such as vehicle information possibly from the 2020 Shirbit insurance company hack.
Ari Ben Am, co-founder of Telemetry Data Labs, a company specializing in tracking hacks and leaks by anti-Israeli groups, was tasked by Israeli authorities to locate the initial leak before the data was disseminated to journalists. According to this expert, while the reports might have been prepared exclusively by or for Hamas, the event seems to be a « hack and leak » operation carried out by Iran. Haaretz and its media partners contacted several dozen affected soldiers. Some had already been warned by security sources about the leak. The Israeli state has since acted to take the data offline and block access to accounts that shared the leak.
