A hacker group from Iran that was targeting Israeli travel booking websites last month released the personal information of nearly 300,000 Israelis.
Last month, the organization known as Sharp Boys claimed to have acquired information such as ID numbers, addresses, credit card details, and more from Israeli travel sites.
Over 20 travel-related websites, including hotel4u.co.il, hotels.co.il, isrotel.com, minihotel.co.il, trivago.co.il, and danhotels.com, were compromised.
Several personal requests by Israeli clients to cancel scheduled holidays due to various health conditions were reportedly among the information that was leaked.
“Wherever you go, even on your trips, you are under our control. Remember our name,” said Sharp Boys in a photo posted on their Telegram channel.
Privacy Protection Authority calls for an upgrade in cybersecurity
Israel’s Privacy Protection Authority stated it contacted the website operator after the theft to draw attention to flaws in data protection, as per N12. The majority of the compromised Israeli websites are run by Gol Tours, which is owned by the operator.
Furthermore, the authority claimed that the operator ignored its request for him to update his cyber security. The Privacy Protection Authority claims that the reason for his denial was the excessive cost.
“We know how to deal with [hackers], but Israeli authorities harmed us more than the Iranians,” the Gol Tours owner said.
Inspectors from the Privacy Protection Authority are said to have taken the operator’s servers after receiving a court order, effectively blocking all of his business’s operations.
The Sharp Boys hacker gang initially surfaced in December when it stated that it had compromised two Israeli hiking websites, revealing the personal data of 100,000 members and uploading copyrighted material of almost three million others.
The Sharp Boys have never mentioned or made any requests for ransom in any of their attacks. It’s unclear whether the attacks had a nationalist agenda.
