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WhatsApp says viral warnings of a cyberattack targeting Jews are baseless
(JTA) — A representative from WhatsApp, the popular messaging platform, says that viral messages spread on the app warning about potential cyberattacks targeting Jews are a hoax.
The warnings appear to have begun circulating since Saturday on multiple online platforms, NBC News reported. On Saturday evening, crypto influencer Scott Melker posted the warning on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, urging his followers to share the post. Melker has nearly one million followers on X and a verified account on that platform from which he can make money.
“No idea if this is true, but better safe than sorry,” Melker wrote. “Warning coming out of Israel re cyber attacks:”
The warning claims hackers will try to get WhatsApp users to download a file through the app called “Seismic Waves CARD” that enables phone hacking within 10 seconds. Melker’s post has been retweeted 200 times and has been viewed 250,000 times. The warning has since been posted nearly 30 times on X and has also spread to other social media and messaging platforms, according to NBC News.
Emily Westcott, a communications manager at WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, told multiple news outlets that this kind of hoax had circulated before. She pointed to a previous statement by the company, made to fact-checking website Snopes, that said similar messages related to the September earthquake in Morocco were also false.
The spread of the hoax plays off of fears of spyware in victims’ phones, a problem that has cropped up in the past but is rare. In 2019, researchers learned that Israeli cyber-intelligence company NSO Group had found a vulnerability in WhatsApp’s code and created spyware that was able to infect cell phones through the app’s voice calling function. The spyware allegedly targeted 1,400 users, including journalists, attorneys, human rights activists, political dissidents, diplomats, and other senior foreign government officials, according to a lawsuit brought by WhatsApp against NSO. According to several reports, NSO’s products played a role in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Under Elon Musk’s leadership, X has come under heavy criticism for its relaxed approach to content moderation and misinformation. Musk himself has engaged with posts spreading conspiracy theories.
On Sunday, Musk recommended that X users follow accounts known for promoting lies in order to stay updated on the Israel-Hamas fighting, before deleting the post. One of those accounts, the War Monitor, has also posted antisemitic content in the past, including a post saying, “the overwhelming majority of people in the media and banks are zionists.”
Old and repackaged videos from previous conflicts, video game clips purporting to be footage from the ground, and a false press release from the White House alleging the Biden administration had allocated $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel have also circulated on X in the days following the outbreak of the war.
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The post WhatsApp says viral warnings of a cyberattack targeting Jews are baseless appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.