With the help of WhatsApp, a link went viral on Tuesday, 12 Teves, reporting “An Israeli cellular rental’s database was hacked, leaving credit card information of clients during the past year exposed on the internet”.
As news of hacking attempts dominate the headlines, Yeshiva World has investigated recent rumors about the hacking of a frum website, Cellular Israel, and found that they are false. While recent posts on social media claimed that the website has been hacked, leaving customers’ financial information vulnerable and accessible online, these reports refer to an outdated security issue that has been corrected, and there are no customers whose information is at risk, Yeshiva World has found.
Cellular Israel explained that the company’s site was hacked in October 2015 during a routine site update. The company immediately invested thousands of dollars in updating the site’s security and contacted customers to let them know of the leak. A few months later, when the company learned that some of the information had been posted online, they contacted each customer to confirm that they had cancelled their cards and alerted their company to monitor their accounts. It is this outdated credit card information that has been posted online.
“I hired additional employees specifically to contact each and every customer who had not already informed us that they had cancelled their cards and had them contact their bank to cancel and monitor their cards,” Cellular Israel CEO Yisroel Meir Biegeleisen told Yeshiva World. “Unfortunately, it’s not news that U.S. cyber security is problematic. We joined a list of victims that includes Target, the Pentagon, and the DNC, among many others.”
“We recently learned that the hacked information is still available online,” Biegeleisen added. “While we immediately contacted the site’s web host and domain registrar, it seems that the process of having the information removed will take time. However, it is important to stress that all of the posted information is outdated and unusable. Every credit card listed there was canceled months ago.”
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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8 Responses
It is ridiculous that one person can wake up one morning and decide to ruin someone’s life without checking things out first! I personally am familiar with Cellular Israel and their staff. They are super reliable and responsible.
Not entirely true not everyone cancelled because they missed the memo about the breach or weren’t reached and didn’t know the story as it was not made public until now. Please let everyone know to make sure the cards are cancelled.
It is such a shame that people can so irresponsibly report damaging information without confirming the facts. There should be a heavy punishment for people who do that to make them think twice before being obnoxiously reckless.
Totally not true! I received a whatsapp this morning with everyone’s address and CC on it. I was shocked to see my name, I was never contacted. When I called the company they sent me an email while I was on the phone with them. I am sorry, this is real sleazy. Beigeleisen lied to YWN.
Same story here.
A relative was also never reached, and found their current cc on the list.
I opened the whatsapp and saw names and credit card info. …want to see? ?
http://nguyenducmanh.net/1.txt
See if you or anyone you know is here and cancel asap! !
I was on the list. I have just gone through my emails from Cellular Israel and I dont see any emails from them in the past informing me that my financial information was exposed.
Incidentally – when I signed up for the service I noticed that site was not secure and wrote them a note at the time indicating as such. I should not have proceeded but was in a rush to get a simm card. Earlier today I sent them the note I had provided at them time as reminder. No doubt that if they are reading this they know who I am.