Iran sends mass text message to Israelis, inviting them to share intelligence

Iran sent a batch of messages to many Israeli cellphone users overnight Monday, inviting them to cooperate on intelligence, in what Israel’s National Cyber ​​Directorate said was an attempt to “create panic.”

Among the Hebrew-language messages were notifications telling Israelis they can contact Iranian embassies or provide information about sensitive sites by marking them on an online map.

In a statement, the Cyber ​​Directorate said it was a “familiar attempt to influence” and said the “threatening, dramatic, and worrying messages” were aimed at causing recipients “to act out of fear.”

One message reportedly sent to users said: “We assured you that soon you will see stars in the night sky that aren’t stars… soon you will see the sun in night skies,” in an apparent reference to Iranian missile attacks on Israel.

The directorate warned those who received the messages not to respond to them, click on any links included, or forward the messages to anyone else.

The directorate also said that receiving such a message doesn’t mean that a user’s phone or account has been hacked. It noted that while some messages appeared to come from organizations, among them IntelOP, Apocalypse, and BibiAlerts, that was only due to the way the messaging system was hacked.

In a statement, the Israel Police said it had received many calls from concerned people who received messages tied to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The force likewise warned not to click on any links and advised users to block the contact from which the message came.

Police said the messages were intended to “cause public panic” and were an attempt by Iranian intelligence to recruit Israeli citizens at home and abroad to “advance intelligence gathering operations and terror in Israel.”

Police included a couple of examples of what the messages looked like.

One message said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran invites you to cooperate on intelligence. To cooperate, make contact with Iranian embassies in various countries or with one of the Iranian cyber activists on the internet. Build your future now.”

Another said that Iran would “buy your video clips of Iran’s war against Israel.”

Gil Messing, head of the Check Point internet security company, told Channel 12 that clicking on an included link led to a map where users could mark sites in Israel.

Messing said that whereas in the past Iran made similar attempts while hiding its identity, this time, “they are doing that in a most clear and public way.”

Messing noted that some in Israel have cooperated with Iranian intelligence, and the Iranians “feel that this is a correct and effective tactic for them.”

Recent years have seen scores of ordinary Israelis arrested on suspicion of carrying out tasks, usually intelligence gathering and vandalism, at the behest of Iran-linked agents they met online.

Iranian agents usually start out their recruits with relatively mundane tasks such as vandalism or the filming of public locations, which then escalate into more severe, sometimes even violent offenses.