Hamas has found a novel technique to attempt to gain access to Israeli military secrets: flirting.
According to the Israeli military, operatives from the militant Islamist organization have used false Facebook accounts and photographs of young women found online to lure dozens of soldiers into chatting with them.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, an officer Israeli claimed that hackers had then used this method to gain control of the unsuspecting troops’ phone cameras and microphones, Reuters reported. The cyber attackers were apparently attempting to gain intelligence about Israeli army movements near to Gaza.
The members of Hamas apparently wrote using Hebrew slang. In one exchange a fake account promised a soldier: "Just a second, I'll send you a photo, my dear,” before sending a picture of a blonde, scantily-clad woman. The alleged conversation was shared widely online:
One of the Israeli soldiers whose phone was infiltrated says: "One girl talked to me and when I started to trust her she asked me to download an app on my mobile and from that time everything I was doing, and every area I went to, Hamas received details about it without my knowledge" This is part of the conversation.
The actions received praise from many Palestinians on social media:
A group of young men in Hamas made fake accounts and added (soliders from) the Israeli army, as if they were girls, and they were able to take secret information. This means that Hamas hackers have infiltrated the Israeli army.
Amused by the incident, one satirical Facebook page responded with the following posts:
Whenever you feel out of luck and you feel like everything is going wrong, remember that there was an Israeli soldier who thought he was in love and was speaking with Christina from Brazil, but really he was speaking to Abu Bara’ from Gaza.
Israeli soldier: I fell in love with a girl, I thought she was from Brazil, I sent her my secrets and then I discovered she was a member of Hamas in Gaza.
Hamas infiltrates the phones of the soldiers of the occupation through using beautiful girls
Hahahaha
This is not the first incident of its kind. In 2001, a 16-year-old Israeli was murdered in the West Bank having been lured there by a Palestinian woman claiming to be a foreign tourist, whom he had met online.
An IDF blog offered the following advice to young Israeli soldiers: "If anything looks fishy – like an email with an uncharacteristic subject line and an attachment you’re not expecting to receive – don’t download or click it.
"Don’t accept friend requests on social media from people you haven’t met, and don’t download any apps from sources you’re unfamiliar with," it added.
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