Posted on 02/16/20
| News Source: Arutz-7
Security establishment thwarts malicious Hamas technology aiming to infect cell phones of those in the IDF via social media.
The security system thwarted a number of Hamas servers over the weekend trying to infect cellular devices of those serving in the IDF, it was cleared for publication Sunday morning, in what has been dubbed "Operation Rebound."
"The purpose of the thwarting," says the IDF spokesman, "was to thwart a set of Hamas technological measures to infect those in the service of the IDF with malware distributed through social networks. The innovation this time also includes the use of the Telegram messaging network and the impersonation of deaf and dumb people,” thereby providing an excuse to avoid voice and video conversations.
The Hamas operations also included the impersonation of female new immigrants to Israel - providing an excuse for little knowledge of the Hebrew language - as well as short generic voice messages in a female voice to increase credibility.
In recent months, the Intelligence Department in the Intelligence Division and the Shin Bet have identified repeated attempts by the Hamas terrorist organization to infect IDF cellular mobile devices by abusing social networks and soliciting downloads of malicious applications.
In recent days, the IDF has collaborated with the Shin Bet on successful technological counterterrorism of Hamas terrorist server infrastructure, which has been used by the organization to contact and gather information from those in the IDF. This is the first time technological counterterrorism has been carried out against such Hamas infrastructures.
The IDF states that as part of the technological counterterrorism, hundreds of soldiers who are likely to have been hit with the malicious applications will be summoned for questioning and removal of the malicious material from their devices.