The Misinformation Industry: This Is How an Israeli Hacking Team Spread Chaos in the World

By, Murad Jandali 

A recent investigation, in which several international newspapers participated, revealed an Israeli hacking team whose mission is to interfere in political election campaigns in dozens of countries around the world.

The investigation included filming conversations with a secret camera, during which former Israeli security officer Tal Hanan (50 years old) spoke that his services, which he described as special operations, were given to intelligence agencies, political campaigns, and private companies all over the world, and were with one goal, which is to influence public opinion.

The investigation was conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which exposed Tal Hanan and his unit, codenamed Team Jorge, which has been operating underground for more than two decades.

Hacking Team

An investigation has exposed a team of Israeli contractors who say they have interfered in more than 30 election processes around the world and manipulated their results, using hacking, sabotage, and spreading disinformation on social media.

The investigation, published by The Guardian on February 15, 2023, stated that one of the team’s main services is an advanced software package called Advanced Impact Media Solutions (AIMS), which controls a huge army of thousands of fake profiles on social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Telegram, Gmail, Instagram, and YouTube.

The conversations with Tal Hanan, which were recorded through a hidden camera, took place during the months between July and December 2022, one of which was in the team’s office in the industrial zone in the Modi’in Illit settlement.

Tal Hanan described that his team includes people who worked in Israeli security agencies with experience in the economy, in communication networks and campaigns, as well as in psychological warfare.

“The team has six offices around the world, including Greece and the UAE,” he said, referring in his conversations to his brother Zohar and his role in the work.

Tal Hanan told the undercover journalists that he provided his services to intelligence agencies, political election campaigns, and private companies, all of which used him to secretly manipulate public opinion.

His client list also includes clients from all over Africa, South and Central America, the United States, and Europe.

“His team is participating in an election campaign in Africa these days,” he added, stressing that “it has so far completed 33 electoral campaigns, 27 of which have been successful.”

However, Tal Hanan said that his team was not directly involved in US politics, explaining that the payment was in cryptocurrency, and adding that the cost of running a team for an election campaign ranges from 6 to 15 million euros.

Tal Hanan showed the investigative reporters how he created an account in the name of a woman called Sophia Wilde, and said, “I love this name. She already has an email account and a date of birth. Everything. The entire process is carried out by an artificial intelligence app under the supervision of the controller.”

The investigation revealed that the team used pictures of real people to create fake accounts, and in the case of Sophia Wilde, it turned out that the woman whose image was used is of Russian origin and actually lives in Leeds in the UK.

In response to a question from one of the investigators about how he obtained all these pictures of real people, Tal Hanan replied that he cannot reveal to him the source of those pictures, telling him that he would have to kill him if he told him that.

Disinformation Industry

The investigation project is part of an expose of the disinformation industry being carried out by Israeli groups led by former intelligence officers, which was coordinated by the French non-profit group Forbidden Stories, which tracks the missions of arrested and murdered journalists.

The investigation also indicated that Tal Hanan boasted that he controlled more than 30,000 account images and also boasted of planting articles in legitimate newspapers and media, which were enlarged and amplified through the bot management program.

Most of the work of the Israeli hacking team focused on sabotaging and disrupting the election campaigns of competitors. The team claimed that it sent sex dolls to the homes of politicians in order to give their wives the idea that they were cheating on them.

Some of the leaked emails showed that Tal Hanan requested modest sums for his services. In a letter dating back to 2015, he demanded $160,000 from the British company that had agreed with Cambridge Analytica for an 8-week campaign in Latin America.

In another attempt, which was rejected by the previous company, for a job in the Kenyan elections in 2017, Tal Hanan asked for between 400,000-600,000 dollars a month.

There is no evidence that these elections were held, but there is evidence that when Team Jorge intervened in the Nigerian elections in 2015, it worked in coordination with Cambridge Analytica.

Team Jorge sent the Nix Foundation a video showing how disinformation is used on social media platforms with AIMS mechanism, which gives the user the ability to create 5,000 bots to spread messages in bulk and propaganda, and said it was used in 17 election campaigns.

He described the mechanism as like an automated avatar that was made to develop the work of the team, adding that the mechanism is flexible and can be used in any language and can be provided as a service or sold as a program if the price is right.

The investigative reporting on Team Jorge revealed extraordinary details of how disinformation was used and weaponized, in addition to the special services it provides to interfere secretly in the elections without any trace that allows it to be traced.

He also revealed that some of the hacking methods used by the hacking team had exploited vulnerabilities in the global signal communications system SS7, which for decades, experts considered a weak point in the communications network.

On the other hand, the Team Jorge revelations could cause embarrassment for “Israel,” which has come under growing diplomatic pressure in recent years over its export of cyber-weapons that are used to undermine democracy and violate human rights.

Especially since Tal Hanan provides its services through an Israeli company called Demoman International, which is registered on a website run by the Israeli Ministry of Defense to promote defense exports to the world, while the Israeli Ministry of Security refused to comment on the investigation.

Israeli Scandal

The new revelations about Team Jorge and its hacking operations present a challenge to the tech giants who have struggled for years to stop malicious actors from spreading lies or having their account security breached.

Evidence of a global market for paid-for services such as hacking, spreading disinformation, and targeting elections will raise concerns in democratic countries around the world.

The partner newspapers revealed that the team’s activities are related to media campaigns and commercial disputes in about 20 countries, including Germany, the United States, Canada, Senegal, Mexico, India, and the UAE.

Meta, which owns Facebook, removed bot-related AIMS from its platform after being told by reporters investigating the activities of Team Jorge.

On February 14, 2023, a spokesperson for Meta linked the AIMS bots to others who had been linked in 2019 to another Israeli company, now defunct, that was banned from the platform.

“This latest activity is an attempt by some of the same people to come back, and we’ve blocked them for violating our policies. The group’s most recent activity appears to have centered around filing bogus online petitions or publishing fabricated stories in mainstream media,” the spokesperson said.

The Jorge scandal adds to the scandal raised by the Israeli company NSO Group’s activities, which sold the Pegasus spy program to countries that used it to eavesdrop on opponents and pursue them at home and abroad.

In turn, political analyst Mohamed Hawash explained that “Team Jorge is the idea of a small Israeli cyber army that provides its services, most of which are related to political affairs, in exchange for money, adding that “this firm took disinformation, chaos, and piracy and turned them into a commodity for sale in the global markets.”

He pointed out that “Israel has come a long way in the field of disinformation and fraud and has been turning such groups and tools into spies that it uses whenever it wants.”

Mr. Hawash added that “Israel benefits from the work of hacking and spy groups on its territory, due to the security and economic benefits it provides, in addition to good foreign relations and wide influence.”

Share:

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pinterest

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

On Key

Related Posts

VK Russian online social media and social networking service

© 2022 Esleman Abay. All rights reserved.

Follow Us

Categories