Security breach on Emirati website leaked Israelis’ personal info.
The security breach allowed hackers easy access to their full names, passport pictures, addresses, passport numbers and more.
By TOBIAS SIEGALUpdated: DECEMBER 17, 2020 19:03Teudat Zehut, Israeli ID card 370(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
An Emirati website has leaked the personal information of thousands of Israelis who used it for planning their trip to Dubai, the N12 news site reported Thursday.The Dubai-based website Sharaf Travels was used by many Israelis who took the exciting opportunity to vacation in Dubai, as new Middle East destinations traditionally closed to Israeli tourists become available.The website, which offered special deals and discounts for Israelis, required personal information for issuing visas to enter the country. According to N12, much of that information has been passed to other travel agency websites in the UAE, and may pose serious security threats.Ido Naor, a cyber specialist and CEO of Security Joes, told N12 that a cyber researcher had referred him to various websites based in the UAE that showed leaked information of Israeli citizens. “We checked one of the websites and immediately found a leak. Every Israeli who used the website to issue a visa to Dubai was exposed to a simple hack that made his information available to hackers, who can easily download PDF files of the actual issued visas,” Naor noted.The security breach allowed hackers easy access to the full names, passport pictures, addresses, passport numbers and more, of many Israelis who used the website. That information, in turn, can be used for purposes of identity theft, which makes it a serious security issue.Naor, alerted by what he found, turned to the Israeli National Cyber Directorate for assistance. The directorate sent an urgent letter to its Emirati counterpart, which is currently working on fixing the breach and locating other websites that may be complicit.In any case, Naor said that he recommends that Israelis “turn to Israeli companies first for issuing visas abroad,” adding that people should always be cautious when providing sensitive information on random websites.
