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Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Israeli government vows to catch Saudi hacker teen who published thousands of credit card numbers, personal data

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon believes the teen hacker did not act alone but has been aided by a larger ring in Saudi Arabia

Hacker claims to have released 400,000 credit card numbers and supposedly has a million more

The Israeli government has vowed to go after a 19-year-old Saudi who posted thousands of credit card numbers and claims to have a million more he's itching to publish.

The hack of 6,000 active accounts Thursday -- on top of 15,000 already released -- is the teenager's second politically motivated attack this year, and Israeli officials are taking the continued threat very seriously, CNN reported.

The action is "a breach of sovereignty comparable to a terrorist operation, and must be treated as such," the Israeli government stated.

The cyber crime was possibly carried out by a group "more organized and sophisticated ... than a lone youth," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said.

Credit card companies report that only a few hundred dollars had been fraudulently spent using the stolen cards and said those accounts had been swiftly closed.

But the hacker claims to have actually released private data of 400,000 Israelis and blamed the "Zionist lobby" for covering up the magnitude of his misdeed, CNN reported.

"I've hacked much more than you can imagine," wrote the hacker, who goes by the pseudonym 0xOmar and affiliates himself with group-xp, a known hacking group in Saudi Arabia.

He claimed that he collected close to a million Israeli credit card numbers and would soon publish them all, CNN said.

The head of Israel's data protection agency Yoram Hacohen said he may involve Interpol in the investigation.

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