Report: Israeli Hacking Team Meddled in 30+ Elections

Facts

• An investigation undertaken by a consortium of journalists and released by The Guardian on Wednesday alleged that a team of Israeli contractors claimed to have manipulated more than 30 elections around the globe using hacking, sabotage, and automated disinformation via social media.¹
• The report said that the team is led by Tal Hanan, a 50-year-old former Israeli special forces operative who now works privately using the pseudonym “Jorge,' and has been operating for more than two decades. Hanan said that he denies 'any wrongdoing.”²
• The group's tactics reportedly included hacking, forging blackmail material, spreading disinformation, planting false intelligence, physically disrupting elections, and deploying targeted social media campaigns. Only some of these allegations were verified by the journalists involved in the report.³
• Hanan and his team were also reported to have acquired unauthorized access to Telegram and Gmail accounts of high-level officials and deployed 'botnet' social media campaigns. The evidence in the report suggests that the group meddled in at least two presidential elections.³
• The report referenced a software used by the team known as Advanced Impact Media Solutions, which controls over 30K fake social media profiles — all of which can be used to spread disinformation or propaganda at extraordinary speed.⁴
• Israel has already come under diplomatic pressure regarding its growing cyber espionage industry, with several companies, most notably the NSO Group, accused of helping authoritarian governments crackdown on human rights and target political rivals.⁵

Sources: ¹Guardian, ²Business, ³Occrp, ⁴Jerusalem Post and ⁵The times of israel.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Middle east eye. This report is a grave indictment of Israel's extremely concerning cyber espionage industry. Considering that Hanan used an Israeli company connected to Israel's Ministry of Defense in his disinformation operations, there's no doubt that there was some level of collusion between him and elements of the Israeli government. The Israeli government must immediately stop companies from meddling in global politics.
• Narrative B, as provided by Timesofisrael. Though there are plenty of critics of companies and groups like Hanan's and NSO, this sort of work has been used to successfully catch countless criminals and terrorists. In light of allegations of misuse, Israel has worked to mitigate this by cutting off access to users who abuse the technology. Tel Aviv has safeguards in place.