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The pro-Palestinian hacktivist group Handala Hack has leaked what they claim are 60,000 secret emails belonging to Gabi Ashkenazi, a prominent Israeli politician. Former Chief of Staff and former Minister of Foreign Affairs. This leak, announced on September 26, also implicates Benny Gantz, the former defense minister, in their latest wave of cyberattacks targeting Israeli officials.
The hackers made the announcement via a post on their dark web site, releasing two password-protected archives purportedly containing Ashkenazi’s emails. “This data is only a small part of our data lake about Gabi Ashkenazi,” they stated, suggesting that more leaks could follow. To bolster their claims, the group included several private photographs of Ashkenazi, which they assert are authentic.
Handala Hack’s latest revelations come just days after they exposed 35,000 confidential emails belonging to Gantz on September 23. This initial leak was accompanied by another archive containing approximately 2,000 photos of Gantz. The group claimed to have discovered numerous confidential meetings that Gantz conducted during his tenure. “We have released only a small part of the data,” they stated, hinting at a larger cache of information yet to be disclosed.
In a dramatic message accompanying the leaks, the group taunted Israeli officials, declaring, “Are the current officials and ministries of the fake Zionist regime safe? Never!!! Be afraid of your shadow!”
This isn’t the first time Handala Hack has made headlines; they previously breached Viber, a widely used instant messaging service, claiming to have stolen over 740GB of data from the company’s servers. As tensions remain high in the region, this latest hacking incident illustrates the increasingly complex landscape of cyber warfare and how it is used as a tool of war.
