• In what is likely the biggest leak in Israel’s history, tens of thousands of sensitive documents and emails have been stolen from Israeli institutions.
• Israel rushes to take down Telegram posts but is blocked by Telegram’s limited moderation policies.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Tuesday that tens of thousands of sensitive documents and emails have been stolen from Israeli institutions, including the justice ministry.
From government ministries to hospitals to military and defence contractors, the scale of the breach has overwhelmed Israel’s cybersecurity infrastructure. A source close to the investigation said, “The true extent of the damage to Israel’s security and economy caused by these leaks is not yet fully known.” “Despite massive investment in defensive cybersecurity measures, the scale of the leaks is likely the most severe in Israel’s history — an unprecedented looting of gigabytes upon gigabytes of information of all sorts.”
A lot of the leaked date has appeared on telegram, prompting a series of takedown attempts by Israeli authorities. Telegram, however, has limited moderation policies that have complicated these efforts.
What has Israel done to try to limit the damage from the leaks?
Through legal measures and direct negotiations with tech giants such as Meta, Google, and Amazon, Israel has tried to mitigate these damages, but the hackers have adapted by using decentralised hosting services and onion domains, which obscure the source of the data and disrupt takedown efforts.
What impact will these leaks have?
Although it is unclear and too early to say what these leaks will mean for Israel, as the exact contents need to be observed thoroughly by media outlets, it cannot be denied that the financial impact of these hackings has already been felt. Israel has for a long time invested huge amounts of money in cybersecurity, and the scale of these leaks will undoubtedly prompt Israel to invest more to try to rectify where they fell short. With the uncertainty of an all-out war against Hezbollah and the prospect of an all-out war with Iran, the Israeli economy is already feeling the burden of its genocide in Gaza. It’s possible that these hacks and leaks will only exhaust the Israeli economy and security services even more.
There is also the question of how this will help Hamas in negotiations. If it’s possible that the reported military leaks expose Israel’s true intention to settle into Gaza by revealing the technical distractions through ceasefire negotiations it tries to embody itself in, it may be that Hamas, and other organisations and member states leave ceasefire negotiations altogether. It’s possible that the leaks may even create more friction with the US and Israel if the US finds out that they are being played around with in the ceasefire talks. The potential that these leaks could be cataclysmic. After the genocide of more than 40,000 people in Gaza, there is no doubt that rogue hackers and hacking organisations are now taking matters into their own hands.
