Hamas uses chilling tactic to torment families of hostages

In a disturbing escalation of psychological warfare, Hamas used stolen phone numbers from previous cyber breaches to target Israelis with fake hostage plea calls.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

Thousands of Israelis were left rattled after they received phone calls featuring the voice of hostages pleading for help, with the sounds of explosions in the background of the desperate messages.

Over the weekend, numerous people with Israeli phone numbers reported receiving pre-recorded calls, which used audio from a clip recently released by Hamas of hostages Yosef-Chaim Ohana and Elkana Bohbot.

“At three in the morning [on Saturday] the phone rang. I never get calls at this hour. I woke up, answered the call, and in the background I heard the voice of a hostage from Gaza begging for his life to be rescued and [air raid] sirens. I was very scared,” Rafi, a resident of the Sharon region, told Hebrew-language outlet Mako.

“A few minutes later, my wife received the same call, she was very frightened. They ruined our Shabbat. We realized that someone in Hamas was trying to scare Israelis. The truth is, they succeeded. In the morning, it turns out that my neighbors also received similar calls. How did they get our phone numbers?”

A cybersecurity expert explained to the Hebrew-language outlet Walla how hackers who placed the call obtained the victims’ phone numbers.

The phone calls were “cheap psychological warfare,” said Tom Malka, Head of Cyber ​​Research & AI at Rakia Group.

“The attempt to scare the public via technology is not new, and we saw similar attempts at the beginning of the fighting and throughout it. But here we are talking about something deeper – the ease of access to information that makes this possible.”

Malka said that numerous cyber attacks in recent years had led to lists of Israelis’ personal data – including their names, phone numbers, and other personally identifying information – being leaked online.

Terror groups, scammers, and cyber criminals can easily obtain this information by paying a relatively small amount of money.

Some data lists have even been posted online for free, allowing anyone to use them without a fee.

The National Cyber Directorate confirmed the hostage phone calls were “an attempt to create panic among the public.”

The Directorate said that members of the public reported receiving the calls from three different numbers, which all appeared to be Israeli numbers.

However, cyber criminals and scanners often leverage technology to disguise the true origin of their calls.