Islamic hackers on Sunday revealed hundreds of Israeli email addresses and their passwords on the website of Anonymous Arab. According to Avnet Security Systems, most of the addresses and passwords listed are active accounts.

Roni Bachar, the manager of the cyber-attack department at Avnet, said in a statement, "There was apparently penetration of an Israeli site which cannot be determined at this stage, a site that requires identification by email address and a password, as is usual at forum, content and commercial sites.

"It isn´t clear yet which site or forum it is, but going over the list shows that most of the people appearing on it are connected to the fields of cosmetics, hairdressing and alternative therapies."

Bachar added that he "doesn´t believe that Facebook itself was hacked since the attack revealed only a small number of addresses, about 300, and passwords were determined through estimates and guesses of the brute force type."

There are what look like numerous identity card numbers and phone numbers on the list that were apparently being used as passwords. Calling some of the numbers revealed that some were the account holders´ old phone numbers (such as numbers belonging to the users´ parents ). A check by Haaretz revealed that there had already been attempts to exploit the information in order to infiltrate the listed accounts.

Earlier this year, a Saudi hacker compromised and publicized the email, Facebook and credit card accounts of numerous Israelis, with citizens of Arab countries also suffering from Israeli hacker counterattacks. Following that episode, the Justice Ministry´s Law, Information, and Technology Authority drew up new information security guidelines for Israeli websites that maintain databases. (© Copyright 2012 Ha´aretz 07/02/12)