Shirbit hack shows cybercrime is a dangerous threat

• Author: JPOST EDITORIAL
• Published date: 06 December 2020
• Date: 06 December 2020
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

Policy holders have been advised to renew their identity cards and driver licenses to try to prevent more damage of possible identity theft. Yesterday, Black Shadow reportedly threatened to sell some of the stolen data.

Such cyber heists are no longer rare and take place around the world. Indeed, the threats seem to be part and parcel of the cyber age. The attack comes amid a spike in ransomware attacks against insurance companies, with dozens in the US reporting ransomware attacks in just the past week, according to MonsterCloud. According to a blog on Checkpoint.com, the third quarter of this year the company's research saw a 50% increase in the daily average of ransomware attacks, compared to the first half of the year.

There is no room for complacency. Cyberthreats to hospitals and national infrastructure can be lethal. Cyberattacks can be used as a form of warfare.

The Shirbit incident, also, should not be played down. It is easy to pretend that most individuals have nothing to hide, but few people would, for example, want their complete physical and mental health records released into the public domain, or the entire contents and value of their homes and possessions. This is in addition to the threat of identity theft that could take place in the future, using personal information.

Over the weekend, the hackers released a large collection of documents, including screenshots of WhatsApp conversations, ID cards, marriage certificates and financial documents. They had previously released photos of employees of the company and medical documents.

Shirbit claimed that the attack is aimed at embarrassing both the company and the entire Israeli economy and refused to pay the millions of dollars that Black Shadow was demanding in Bitcoin. Despite the company's attempts to portray this as a national security attack, in this case, evidence so far seems to point more in the direction of criminal extortion: But it is still a developing situation, no one knows where this material will end up and how it will be used.

An insurance company, in particular, should be particularly sensitive to concerns...