A Chat With the Teen Saudi Hacker Who Says He Stole a Million Israeli Credit Cards
What drives a teenager to steal thousands of Israeli credit cards and slowly leak them to make a political point? We tried to figure out in a Skype chat with a 19-year-old Saudi hacker named 0xOmar.
For the past few days, 0xOmar has been doing his best to terrorize Israel with massive leaks of credit card information. On January 3rd, he hacked Israel's biggest sports website and posted a link to a file containing 400,000 Israeli credit card numbers. "It will be so fun to see 400,000 Israelis stand in line outside banks and offices of credit card companies to complain that their cards had been stolen," he wrote.
But credit card companies said the leak was seriously padded—only about 15,000 numbers were valid. This enraged 0xOmar, who stepped up his campaign. He posted what he claimed were another 11,000 numbers, and boasted in a press release he had a million in total.
He also posted his email address, which I emailed this afternoon. About five minutes later I was Skyping with 0xOmar, whose real name is Omar; a blustery teen who lives with his parents, likes Xbox, and really, really hates Israel.
Hi Omar.
hi. I'm ready for interview. if you have questions please ask. I have to leave soon.
Why are you doing this?
Israel kills Israeli innocent people, it's what their government do, it's their daily business, they do not obey any law, international law, so I want to harm them in ANY way I can
How did you steal so many credit cards?
by hacking at least 80 Israeli shopping sites. It took me about 6 months to find targets and hack them. I used Remote File Inclusion, Local File Inclusion, SQL injection, Arbitrary File Upload, Oracle Padding Attack...
Have you bought anything w/ the credit cards?
ooohhh so so much!!! I'm currently talking with you from a VPS I purchased by Israeli cards. do you want me to buy Skype credits? :)
Pretty sure that would get me into trouble.
yeah :) do you want me to buy a software license?
Well, I don't want you to buy anything really. Some random Israeli will have to deal with it.
I purchased a game for a person who contacted me via email for example. Modern Warfare 3. I do it daily. I buy ANYTHING I want from internet.
Do you play video games?
yes. why not.
PS3 or Xbox?
XBOX
I've also got an Xbox.
that's good, better than PS3
What's your gamertag?
it's my fullname. I can't say.
What do you hope to get from leaking credit card numbers of normal Israelis? If you want to hurt the government, why not attack government sites?
I attack them also, but hacking a site doesn't harm really, they can restore site in some hours at max a day. But leaking people data will be in internet and it's not easy to clean up mess
Would you call what you're doing hacktivism? Or cyberterrorism?
could be anything, just I want to see Israel suffering
You said in a press release that you have hacked "much more than you can imagine." What else do you have?
I have entire Israeli population database even dead people. I have documents of Israeli companies who build jammers and military survellance. I have their customers and their emails. There technical documents. Half million more credit cards. And much more
Can you show me any of the unpublished documents as proof?
hmmm prefer to not share now. I'll leak when media forgot me. I'll start leaking to re-get media. I'll publish them one by one. I'll be in media for at least 2 month
Why do you want to be in the media?
make Israeli people afraid and be in panic. I want to be their horror. Their nightmare
But isn't there any way you can prove you have this other stuff? Show me something that hasn't been released yet.
Do you want me to send you 4 Israeli fresh credit cards with all details which is not published?
Sure.
4 CCs has been sent, they work, you can buy with them :).
[He sends an email with 4 credit card details. A quick Google shows two appear to belong to Israeli tech workers. I did not buy anything with them.]
Can you tell me a little about yourself. They say you're a 19-year-old Saudi
that's right. Who challenged Mossad to find me.
Do you live at home?
Yes, where should I live? street? hahahaha
I meant with your parents.
yes
Do they have any idea what you're doing?
approximately, but they are not aware of details, just they know I'm hurting Israel
And what do they think about it?
They like it and support me
You mentioned in your press release that the hacking team you belong to, Group-XP, is Wahhabi.
yes. I support them in digital world. I help them in creating sites and forums.
Do you visit 4chan?
not so much
Do you have a Twitter account?
no. Jewish lobby is good in internet. they close accounts and files in internet fast.
Do you know anything about bronies?
No. What's that?
Adult men who love the children's cartoon 'My Little Pony.' It's an internet thing.
hmmm what's it's relation to me?
Nothing really. Just was curious if you'd heard of it.
never heard
Have you ever seen the movie Hackers?
no
Wargames?
no
The Matrix?
no
Any movies with hackers in them?
I saw, but don't remember names
Alright, well I guess those are all the questions I have. Do you have anything else to say?
no for now, thanks
How was this interview compared to the others?
more detailed
It's true, I have a lot of time on my hand. It's Friday.
good :)
Do you have plans for the weekend?
not really, will read articles and look for more Israeli servers to own, make ready my last leak :)
Sounds like a blast.
thanks