Data Backup Digest

The majority of us are already well aware of the inherent dangers of today's social media websites. Fake profiles, online scams and cyber criminals can be found on every single one of the most popular sites. However, some members of the Israeli military apparently didn't receive this memo.

According to recent news, some Israeli soldiers fell victim to one of the oldest tricks in the book: catfishing. They were lured by a false profile that was meant to be of the opposite sex. In this specific case, militants from Hamas established numerous fake profiles on Facebook that made them appear to be women. By posting lewd and semi-nude photos online, the Hamas hackers were able to convince some soldiers to download and install software that turned out to be sophisticated hacking software.

Because of the spoof, hackers with Hamas were able to take full control of the affect smartphones. Government officials were quickly made aware of the shortcoming when a female IDF soldier noticed that her own Facebook photo was been used on another profile. Moreover, the fake profile was actively been used to send friend requests to her fellow soldiers. Additionally, some of the male IDF soldiers who were targeted also became suspicious of some of their newest online friends.

The IDF took quick action to rectify the issue. All smartphones and devices have been cleaned of any virus or malware at the time of this writing, including the hardware of one soldier with the ranking of major. The rest of the affected smartphones were owned by lower-level soldiers.

However, this isn't the only time Hamas has infiltrated the online networks of the Israel Defense Force, or IDF. They've found their way into the nearly every single one of the thousands of Facebook groups that are owned by IDF. These communities are used on a regular basis in order to let soldiers - and veterans - maintain contact with one another.

Avichay Adraee, Arabic spokesperson for IDF, described the situation is plainly as possible by saying: "During the operation, we uncovered dozens of accounts working to leak and steal information from Israeli soldiers by installing malicious programmes on soldiers' smartphones that spy and record everything. Hamas pretended to be fictitious characters, stole real accounts and people's names from around the world to use illegally."

"The enemy knows the language of young people and installed viruses that can control the telephones of dozens of soldiers," stated a representative from the Israeli army. "We will disseminate and denounce the false profiles of Hamas, impose stricter rules for soldiers who are on social networks and train military personnel to react to attacks before it is too late."

Although social media is increasingly making its way into every aspect of our lives, very few of us would have ever expected sites like Facebook to play a role in a large-scale conflict such as this. If nothing else, it just goes to show you the importance of safeguarding data, becoming familiar with the nuances of today's online landscape and knowing how to recognize a scam when you see it.