Iranian hackers wage cyber campaign against “Israel”

TEHRAN, Dec. 28 (YPA) – An Iranian hacker group calling itself Hanzala announced on Sunday it hacked the personal phone of the director of the Office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Tzachi Braverman.

In a post on X, the group, it threatened to publish information it described as “sensitive and personal”, in a cyber escalation embarrassing the Israeli security system.

The group said it hacked Braverman’s iPhone 16 Pro Max, and waved revealing contents including encrypted conversations, files and data that it considered extremely dangerous, using a threatening tone veiled a countdown promise (“TikTok”) to suggest the imminent publication of information.

The Hebrew newspaper Maariv called the post a “threatening poem” aimed at raising the level of tension and confusing the scene, pointing to suggestions of a possible scandal through symbolic expressions and images generated by artificial intelligence, in direct questioning the effectiveness of cyber protection surrounding Netanyahu.

So far, the Office of the prime minister of the occupation government has remained silent, coinciding with an upcoming visit by Netanyahu to the United States, which gives the breach sensitive political and security dimensions, and brings to the forefront a series of previous breaches announced by the group against prominent Israeli officials.

The development, according to observers, reflected the escalation of threats on the cyber front of the occupation, amid anticipation of whether the “Hanzala” threats may develop into actual leaks or remain in the framework of a calculated psychological war.

AA