The Israeli Soldiers and the Hamas have never gotten along with one another, as the Hamas tries to find any way they can to end the Israeli Soldiers. Basically, the Israeli Soldiers are the military for the Israel government and the Hamas are the Islamic Resistance Group. The Hamas have a group called the Hamas Hackers that try to find any way they can to hack into the Israeli soldiers’ phones.

They have had many conflicts with the Israeli soldiers and have found many methods in which they could make these soldier’s lives a nightmare, even if it means pretending to be women and catfishing these soldiers.

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How Did the Hamas Hackers Catfish Israeli Soldiers?

The Hamas Hackers pretended to be fake women and messaged the soldiers through Instagram, Facebook, and the Telegram app.  Once they formed relationships with these soldiers, they then sent them a link claiming that it was an “additional app that they could talk through”.

However, when soldiers clicked the link they got malware and viruses downloaded on their devices instead of the ability to continue chatting with the girl. The app that was filled with viruses then acts as a Snapchat that can have access to the phone’s camera, locations, and gave the Hamas hackers free access to the soldier’s phones.

This catfishing hack only affected a few dozen Israeli soldiers before Israeli Intelligence caught the Hamas Hackers in the act. From there, they were able to track the Hamas hacking system by tracking the malware that made it on some of the soldiers’ phones. They then tweeted about what happened with the hashtag #CatfishCaught.

The Hamas Hackers have become clever when it comes to hacking their victims’ devices. They pretended that they were girls who immigrated to Israel and had messages that had spelling and grammatical errors as well as Hebrew slang. They also attempted to edit and disguise the photos they used so that they wouldn’t be traceable on a reverse search platform.

This was their third attempt in trying to catfish these soldiers. Even though they tried to cover their tracks up more, they still failed in tricking the majority of these soldiers. Even though there were a few soldiers who were tricked, the Israel Security Agency is still making the best of it and is monitoring the infected phones to analyze the hacking app.

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How to Prevent Malware and Being Catfished

If a soldier can be catfished by hackers, then so can any average person. That is why it’s always a good idea to always be on the lookout for anything suspicious.

Here are 5 ways to prevent getting catfished, and prevent your device from getting hacked into:

1. Don’t click on random links sent to you from a stranger. These random links usually link to websites that install malware or viruses to your device. Verify any website or app shown to you before accessing it to prevent your device from becoming infected. Also, there should be no reason as to why a random stranger would want to message you outside of the app. For your safety, continue messaging on the app you met on.
2. Video chat or meet with them in person. If they don’t want to talk to you outside of instant messaging or a normal phone call, then that could be a red flag that their face doesn’t match their picture shown to you. Since it’s 2020, everyone should have access to a webcam or smartphone of some sort. If they come up with an excuse as to why they don’t have a webcam or can’t video chat you, this could be a red flag that they are a catfish.
3. Don’t give out any personal or financial information. There should be no reason as to why you would need to give a random stranger personal information of any kind. This could lead to identity fraud, where scammers impersonate you to apply for credit cards, or to hackers stealing money straight out of your accounts.
4. Avoid profiles with heavily edited photos. These heavily edited photos that seem too good to be true usually are too good to be true. This usually means that the hacker or scammer is covering up the fact that this is someone else’s photo.

And #5… Reverse search anyone that you meet online to verify their identities. At Social Catfish, we can reverse search for anyone with any information you have, such as a name, phone number, email address, username of a social media profile, or an image. That way even if an image can’t be searched due to it being heavily edited, you can still see if the person you are talking to is who they say they are.

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