Israeli cyber intelligence company ClearSky revealed on Thursday that Hamas terrorists are trying to plant spyware on Israeli mobile phones.
According to the company, a fake website posing as the Israeli "Color Red" website, from which one can download an app which provides alerts on rocket sirens in the south, redirects users to the malicious application. ClearSky’s security researchers believe the cyberattack is only in its early stages.
The company stressed that users could be directed to download the spyware by fake profiles on Facebook and botnets on Twitter.
ClearSky CEO Boaz Dolev said, "As part of our monitoring activity in the cyberspace, which provides our customers with warnings of attacks and helps them protect themselves from such attacks, we have discovered the phishing websites that lead to the downloading of malicious software. When you download the application, it takes over your cell phone and allows the operator to track the device, record its location, take photos, record audio, make calls, send messages and any other action that the device knows how to perform.”
Dolev added that "according to a series of data that was collected, we can see that Hamas scheduled the attack as the cyber arm of the current rocket attack on Israel."
Dolev warned that from the moment the application is downloaded to the phone, there is no known way to remove it.
"Applications should be downloaded only from the official application stores. Unfortunately, it appears as though if the software has already been downloaded, deleting the application will not help and will not remove the malicious software from the devices, and the cellular phone will continue to transmit the data to the operator," he said.