Mideast credit card wars heat up
Israeli stock market traders work at their office in the Meitav investment house in Tel Aviv. The banking information of over 400,000 Israelis was released last week by the online hacking group Anonymous.
It would seem the credit card numbers of the entire Middle East population are online (not really), in a growing cyber-war between hackers of enemy countries.
A group of Israeli hackers told the Israeli online news site, YNet, that they obtained the details of thousands of credit cards used on Saudi shopping websites:
"If the leaks continue, we will cause severe damage to the privacy of Saudi citizens," one of the Israeli hackers threatened.
The move comes on the heels of a major hack job that exposed the banking information of more than 400,000 Israelis, reportedly carried out by Saudi hackers of the online Anonymous network.
"It will be so fun to see 400,000 Israelis stand in line outside banks and offices of credit card companies to complain that their cards had been stolen. To see banks shred 400,000 cards and reissue them. To see that Israeli cards are not accepted around the world, like the Nigerian cards," the hackers wrote.
Israel and Saudi Arabia do not maintain official diplomatic relations — but making purchases online with eachother's credit cards is probably one of the least harmless ways to express their mutual distaste.