Israelis were sent fake texts ordering them to avoid bomb shelters amid a fresh wave of Iranian missile strikes as part of an orchestrated campaign of “psychological warfare”, the country’s Cyber Directorate has confirmed.
The messages tried to “sow widespread panic” by claiming that there was a risk of terrorist attacks on shelters and urging civilians to stay in their homes.
One notice, sent by a fake number dubbed OREFAlert (designed to mimic the official warnings put out by the Home Front Command), read: “Urgent warning – Possibility of terrorist attack in shelters, you should avoid staying in the shelters until further notice.”
Another suggested that fuel supplies would be suspended for 24 hours, telling people to stay out of shelters until that time.
The Cyber Directorate quickly identified the messages as fake, adding that it believed the campaign to have been activated by pro-Iranian groups aiming to destabilise Israel’s civilian defences.
Unusually, the texts did not contain any malicious links or malware and, instead, were aimed solely at spreading disinformation.
A statement from the directorate read: “Fake messages are currently being distributed urging not to enter shelters and warning of a fuel outage. This is an attempt to sow panic.
"Official messages are sent only through the Home Front Command app and website, hotline 104, and media channels. The message does not harm the phone. Block the sender – and do not forward it.”
It comes as cybersecurity firm Radware identified a seven-fold increase in cyberattacks directed at Israeli over the first two days of its war with Iran, compared to the two days before it began.
Ron Meyran, the company’s vice president of cyber threat intelligence, said: “The 700 per cent surge in malicious activity within just two days stems from cyber retaliation operations by Iranian state actors and pro-Iranian hacker groups, including DDoS attacks [in which hackers bring down sites by flooding them with web traffic], infiltration attempts targeting critical infrastructure, data theft and malware distribution campaigns.”
In the wake of the fake texts, Israelis have been urged to stay tuned to officials channels for instructions and enter shelters as instructed.
The Israeli death toll has now risen to 24 after Iranian missiles pounded civilian areas, including Tel Aviv, Haifa and Petah Tikva.
In response, the IDF has conducted bombing raids over Iran, including striking a state-affiliated TV channel while it was live on air.
The military has issued an evacuation order for a large part of western Tehran and confirmed the elimination of nearly a dozen key military leaders, as well as several nuclear scientists.
