Yisrael Beytenu says member data was stolen in alleged hack

Right-wing party files a police complaint, suspects a former employee is responsible for June breach

Yisrael Beytenu’s computers have been hacked and member data was stolen, the right-wing party said in a police complaint filed Wednesday.

According to the complaint, computers at the party’s Netanya headquarters were breached and five files containing local members’ personal information were compromised.

The party said that it discovered the data breach in late June.

“The breach was carried out through the username of an election campaign manager in Netanya, who announced his resignation from the party on the same day, raising suspicion of a connection between the breach, the theft of information and his resignation,” the party said in a statement.

Ahead of the April elections, some 62 percent of Israelis said they fear that elections could be tampered with, but most are confident that the country is equipped to handle a major cyberattack, according to a study by the Pew Research Center released this January.

Nearly three-quarters of Israelis, 73 percent, reported that Israel is “well prepared to handle a major cyberattack,” the highest percentage of any of the 26 countries surveyed.

At the same time, 62 percent of respondents in Israel said it was likely that future elections would be tampered with, slightly higher than the international average. A majority of Israelis also thought it likely that hackers would damage public infrastructure and access national security information.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that there is “no country better prepared” to combat election interference. But despite Israel’s thriving tech sector and vaunted security capabilities, some experts say its laws are outdated and Netanyahu’s government hasn’t made cyber threats a priority.