Cyber Incident Victim: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Date:
Apr 2015
Location:
Israel
Summary
A collective of hacking groups including Anonymous Arab and AnonGhost conducted a coordinated cyberattack campaign targeting Israeli entities, compromising approximately 700 websites and leaking extensive sensitive data. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs was among the affected organizations, with attackers exfiltrating and publicly disclosing thousands of PayPal credentials, email accounts, and modem login details alongside personal information belonging to 150,000 citizens. The leaked datasets, verified as authentic and originating from Israeli online portals, included names, addresses, phone numbers, and financial credentials distributed via public paste sites as part of an ongoing disruptive operation.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 2 motives | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 2 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs was among hundreds of Israeli entities targeted during the 2015 OpIsrael campaign, a coordinated cyber offensive executed between early and mid-April. Multiple hacktivist groups—including Anonymous Arab, AnonGhost, and Anonymous Arabe—publicly declared their intent to disrupt Israeli digital infrastructure prior to initiating attacks. The campaign commenced with widespread website defacements, credential leaks, and data breaches affecting government, academic, and commercial organizations. Attackers compromised over 700 websites, with defacement records publicly listed on Pastebin and Ghostbin repositories. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Honda Israel, and Technion institutions were explicitly named as confirmed victims of website disruptions. Concurrently, hacking groups exfiltrated and leaked sensitive user data from Israeli online portals, including area.co.il and walla.co.il.
Operational impacts included the exposure of 2,143 PayPal account credentials, over 7,000 email passwords, and personal information belonging to 150,000 Israeli citizens—comprising full names, physical addresses, email contacts, and phone numbers. An additional leak contained modem login credentials for 6,000 Israeli internet subscribers. Third-party analysis verified the legitimacy of substantial portions of the leaked data, which attackers disseminated via Pastebin links containing PayPal credentials (dLGZA3rF), email credentials (Cc0bV0w2), and citizen records (SqjFw9PW). The groups announced intentions to sustain attacks through April 20, 2015, though available records do not specify whether subsequent actions affected previously named entities like the Jerusalem Center. No remediation efforts or technical responses from victim organizations were documented in the disclosed material.