Tit-for-tat hack as Israeli posts Saudi credit cards

An Israeli hacker published details of what he claimed were more than 200 Saudi-owned credit cards online overnight in a revenge attack after a similar move by "Saudi" hackers earlier this month.

In a posting titled "FREE Saudi's Credit Cards!" the hacker listed the names, email addresses, phone numbers and numbers of 217 cards, of which more than 160 appeared to have expiry dates that were still valid.

The hacker used the nickname "0xOmer" -- an almost identical name to that of the Saudi hacker who exposed the Israeli card details -- and identified himself as "Omer Cohen from Israel."

But in a Twitter posting, he refused to expose the cards' security codes, or CVC numbers, saying the aim was just to "alert."

Last week, a hacker who claimed to be from Saudi Arabia posted details of thousands of Israeli credit cards online in two separate incidents, and reportedly infected those following the hack with a Trojan horse virus.

In the first incident, the perpetrator, who identified himself as "0xOmar" from group-xp, said he had posted details of 400,000 cards online.

Three days later, he said he had published another 11,000 card details but it turned out to be malware that infected anyone who downloaded the information.

Israel's main credit card companies said only about 20,000 valid cards had been affected.

Israeli news website Ynet said it had contacted the Israeli hackers who claimed to have obtained details of thousands of credit cards used on Saudi shopping websites but were "waiting for the right moment to publish it."

"We could not stay silent after the pompous boasting of the Saudi hacker," one of the unnamed hackers told the website.

(c) 2012 AFP