Israeli army tests soldiers’ response to spying attempts

The Israeli army has tested the responses of its soldiers to spying attempts through social media, Shehab News Agency reported on Wednesday. The tests come a couple of months after Israel’s domestic security service, Shin Bet, revealed an attempt by the military wing of Hamas to spy on Israeli soldiers and obtain information from them via social media.

According to reports on Israeli TV, around 350 Israeli soldiers received “Friend” requests from beautiful women on Facebook. The reports pointed out that this is how Hamas has tried to make contact with Israeli soldiers. Only 6 per cent of the requests were accepted.

“This rate is low,” said a Shin Bet source, “but it could be very dangerous as the enemy could reach senior people and be able to get sensitive information.” It would just take one ignorant person among the soldiers to cause a lot of damage to the whole security system, the source added.

Furthermore, the Israeli fear is that soldiers’ personal details related to credit cards, photographs and mobile phones could be obtained. Both men and women have been targeted.

Read: Israeli intelligence admits Hamas ‘hacks’ into IDF personnel phones