Iranian hackers leak data of over 300,000 Israelis from tourism sites

A hacker organisation from Iran that was targeting Israeli vacation booking websites last month released the personal information of nearly 300,000 Israelis. Last month, the organisation known as Sharp Boys claimed to have acquired information such as ID numbers, addresses, credit card details, and more from Israeli travel websites.

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 consumers to cancel scheduled holidays due to various health conditions were reportedly among the information that was released.

"You are under our supervision no matter where you go, including on your travels. Keep our name in mind, "in a picture they shared on their Telegram channel, the Sharp Boys stated.

According to N12, Israel's Privacy Protection Authority stated it contacted the website operator after the theft to draw attention to flaws in data protection. The majority of the compromised Israeli websites are run by Gol Tours, which is owned by the operator.

Additionally, the authorities claimed that the operator ignored their request for him to update his cyber security. The Privacy Protection Authority claims that the reason for his denial was the prohibitive expense.

The proprietor of Gol Tours denied the claims made against him, saying he never refused to update his cyber security. Furthermore, he claimed that his business does not maintain credit card details and that the hackers "just grabbed names and phone numbers" from his website.

Inspectors from the Privacy Protection Authority are said to have taken the operator's servers after receiving a court order, effectively stopping all of his business's operations.

Sharp Boys' assertions

Sharp Boys uploaded a spreadsheet that it claimed held the personal data of 120,000 users and claimed to have taken control of the websites' backend administration.

The gang asserted earlier in the month that it had also compromised a number of other Israeli travel websites and stolen customer personal data from those websites.

Later, Sharp Boys released a spreadsheet that it claimed contained the personal data and credit card details of 100,000 people.

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