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Iranian hackers publish personal data of 30,000 Israeli students and teachers

Group offers personal data of some 4 million Israeli students and teachers for sale.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

An Iranian hacking group published the personal information of some 30,000 Israeli students and teachers, including their ID numbers, phone numbers, and email and home addresses, on Sunday.

The group, calling itself The Generous Thief, claimed that it breached the Center for Educational Technology (CET) and the National Digital Affairs Directorate’s Campus.il website.

After leaking the information of 30,000 Israelis on the Telegram anonymous messaging platform, The Generous Thief said that it had obtained the personal data of some 4 million Israelis,and that it was willing to sell that information to an interested party.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry acknowledged the attack on Monday in a statement, saying that investigators had found “indications of a cyber attack” and that the fallout was being managed by Israel’s national cybersecurity directorate.

The statement added that the Education Ministry’s systems were “working normally.”

Along with a preview of the students’ and teachers’ data, The Generous Thief released a statement in broken Hebrew which slammed the “dirty government” of Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

“Okay enough! You have hurt the teachers too much during this time,” reads the message posted by the group. “What do you think if we now harass you? To start taking [back] our rights we broke into the largest technological-educational center in Israel… And it will continue.”

Despite purporting to be working on behalf of Israel’s teachers, who recently threatened to strike should they not receive a salary raise, Hebrew-language media reported that Israel’s Defense Ministry is confident the hacking group is based in Iran.

“As we have seen during the previous election campaigns… various attack groups are operating in Israel and are trying to cause moral harm to undermine the ruling system,” cyber expert May Brooks-Kempler told Walla News.

“From the statements, it appears that this…is a group whose goal is harming the Israeli public,” she added.