Israelis’ credit card data disclosed by Saudi hacker

JERUSALEM

A Saudi hacker breaks into the sites of Israeli online companies, publishes details of 400,000 Israeli owned credir cards.

A self-defined Saudi hacker has claimed to have published details of 400,000 Israeli-owned credit cards online, but the card firms insisted yesterday that only 14,000 cards had been affected.

Details of the hack were exposed late Jan. 2 in a statement posted on an Israeli sports website.

“Hi, It’s 0xOmar from group-xp, largest Wahhabi hacker group of Saudi Arabia,” the statement read. “We are anonymous Saudi Arabian hackers. We decided to release first part of our data about Israel.”

Links in the statement led to websites containing details of Israeli credit cards, as well as cards used to purchase merchandise from “Judaism” websites and those used to donate to “Israeli Zionist Rabbis,” Agence France-Presse reported. One of the lists included what the hackers termed 65 Zionists, who purchased products from a website called Judaism. Another list included the details of 500 people who donated to rabbis, according to Saudi hacker.

“Enjoy purchasing stuff for yourself,” it said, noting the “fun” in “watching 400,000 people gathered in front of Israeli credit card companies and banks” and “making Israeli credit cards untrustable in the world, like Nigerian credit cards.”

Israel David, chief executive officer of Israel Credit Cards-Cal Ltd, confirmed the security breach but said that after combing through details posted online, they had identified only 14,000 valid credit cards. “These cards are being removed from the system,” he told Israel’s private Channel 2 television yesterday morning.

 Isracard CEO Dov Kotler told public radio there was no breach of security at the credit card firms or any banks. Kotler said Isracard had analyzed the information and also found that only 14,000 of the credit card numbers listed by the hackers were valid, including 6,600 issued by his company, Reuters reported. Kotler told Ynet news agency that Isracard would replace the 6,600 credit cards. Some of the stolen card numbers were used in Internet purchases but Kotler said Isracard had blocked further transactions and its affected clients would be reimbursed.
According to Kotler, the breach is not major considering the fact there are approximately 7 million credit cards in use in Israel.

“We are fully in control of this situation,” he said. “We will, of course, compensate customers who were compromised – as we routinely do. I’m responsible for my customers. Anyone who suffered damage will be compensated. There is nothing to worry about.”