The Black Shadow hacker group on Tuesday night leaked the full medical database of the Machon Mor medical institute, including the medical records of about 290,000 Israeli patients, revealing the patients’ test results, appointments, treatments, and other personal information.

Earlier on Tuesday, the group released personal information from the database of Atraf, an LGBTQ dating website, which is hosted by the CyberServe internet hosting company. A number of other websites hosted by CyberServe were hacked as well.

The Black Shadow group, believed to be Iran-based hackers engaging in attacks for criminal motives, demanded a ransom of $1 million in digital currency from Atraf. When it wasn’t paid, they uploaded files of personal information to a Telegram channel

“This is one of the most serious attacks on privacy that Israel has ever seen,” Yoram Hacohen, head of the Israel Internet Association, told Ynet. “Israeli citizens are experiencing cyberterrorism. It’s terrorism in every sense and the focus now must be on minimizing the damage and suppressing the distribution of the information as much as possible.”

Also on Tuesday, another hacker group called Moses Staff said it had breached several Israeli engineering companies, Ynet reported. Last month, the same group targeted hundreds of Israeli websites and published photos of Defense Minister Benny Gantz it claimed it had taken from military servers.

Israel’s National Cyber Directorate stated on Sunday that it had warned CyberServe of its vulnerability to cyberattacks.

Black Shadow breached the Israeli Shirbit insurance company last year and leaked data after the company declined to pay the $1 million ransom.

Last month, the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera suffered a major ransomware attack that paralyzed the hospital’s IT systems for weeks. Three days later, nine additional attempted cyberattacks on Israeli hospitals and health organizations were thwarted.

Israeli defense officials have ascertained that the attacks were carried out by a Chinese hacker group for criminal motives.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)