Payment cards: murder squads to be sent after hackers who released credit card info?
It is difficult to know exactly what Israel means when it says it regards hacking as akin to terrorism and subject to the same kind of counter-measures. Are they seriously suggesting that they will send out death squads as they have for those they consider to threaten Israeli security?
The worrying comments are carried by the UK's BBC which is normally cautious of publishing content that might be regarded as negative towards Israel.
A BBC report says
Such cyber-attacks are "a breach of sovereignty comparable to a terrorist operation, and must be treated as such", Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has said.
"Israel has active capabilities for striking at those who are trying to harm it, and no agency or hacker will be immune from retaliatory action," he added, without giving further details.
Israel is notorious for acting with extreme violence outside its own borders and for sending hit squads to murder those it considers to be terrorists. The most recent example was the murder of a prominent Palestinian in a Dubai hotel in which false passports were used to gain access to a country to which Israelis do not generally have entry.
The comments result from the obtaining from a commercial (i.e. not government) website of credit card details of thousands of Israeli and other citizens.
Israel says that the data was stolen by a young Saudi known as OxMar. Companies have, reportedly, said that as many as 25,000 credit card details may have been stolen.
Unfortunately, HAMAS has not helped the situation with a spokesman reported by Reuters to have said
We urge Arab youth to ignore these cowardly Israeli threats and to use all means available in the virtual space to confront Israeli crimes.
That kind of language supports the extension of the term terrorism even though there is no real basis for so doing.
However, the use of internet crime for political purposes is likely to increase rather than decrease.
And that is a threat to all businesses including those in the financial sector.
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