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Raz Zimmt (head of the Iran Desk at Israeli security institutes)

Claimed by Handala · listed 5 months ago

4m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedMar 12, 2026
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Handala
Status
Data leaked
Country
Israel
Listed on leak site
Mar 12, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

Raz Zimmt is an individual analyst identified as the head of the Iran Desk at Israeli security and research institutes, specializing in Iranian affairs. He is not a company but rather a named individual targeted personally. No organizational public site was available to confirm institutional affiliation details.

Industry
Intelligence & Security Research / Think Tank

Attack summary

Severity: high — The target is a named individual working in national-security-adjacent intelligence research; claimed exfiltration of his full inbox and 'entire world' of data likely encompasses sensitive geopolitical analysis, source communications, and personal PII, representing significant personal and potentially national-security risk.

The group Handala claims to have gained unauthorized access to the target's email inbox and broader personal digital accounts, implying exfiltration of personal and professional communications and data, framed as retaliation for the target's public commentary on Iran.

high

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Email inbox contents
  • Personal communications
  • Professional correspondence
  • Potentially sensitive research or analytical material

What the group claims

Mr. Raz Zimmt, Do you still think you can comment on Iran? Today, you learned the hard way what happens when you play with fire, you get burned. The so-called head of the Iran Desk at Israeli security institutes has now become the hunted. We didn’t just access your inbox, we unlocked your entire world.…

Sources

Source

Indexed 5 months ago

This page surfaces a public ransomware disclosure indexed by Darkfield. Original posts come from the operator's own leak site; we cross-check against ransomware.live, RansomLook and RansomWatch where applicable. Share this URL freely.

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Disclosure context

About Handala

Handala is a recently emerged ransomware group that first appeared in May 2024, primarily motivated by financial gain with potential geopolitical overtones given their targeting patterns. The group's country of origin remains unclear, though their focus on Israeli targets alongside Western nations suggests possible Middle Eastern connections or sympathies, and it is unknown whether they operate as a standalone group or utilize a Ransomware-as-a-Service model. Limited public information exists regarding their specific attack methodologies, initial access vectors, or technical capabilities, though their rapid accumulation of 164 documented victims suggests they employ effective compromise techniques across multiple sectors including technology, government, energy, and healthcare organizations. The group has demonstrated a clear preference for targeting victims in Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with additional activity observed in Iran and the UAE, indicating either opportunistic targeting or strategic selection based on geopolitical considerations. Given their recent emergence and continued victim acquisitions throughout 2024, Handala appears to remain active, though comprehensive technical analysis and law enforcement reporting on their operations remain limited due to their relatively short operational history. The group has been linked to 182 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on May 26, 2024; most recent post April 15, 2026. The operation is currently active.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • March 12, 2026Raz Zimmt (head of the Iran Desk at Israeli security institutes) listed by Handalaon the group's public leak site

Other recent disclosures by Handala

Handala has been linked to 182 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Handala dossier →

Sector and geography

Geographically, Raz Zimmt (head of the Iran Desk at Israeli security institutes) is reported in Israel, a country with 156 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Handala means Raz Zimmt (head of the Iran Desk at Israeli security institutes) appeared on a ransomware extortion site and data attributed to it has been published. If this is your organisation, or a supplier you depend on, the priority is to confirm the intrusion and contain it before the window to act closes.

  • Engage your incident-response team and preserve forensic evidence before remediating — do not wipe affected systems first.
  • Force a password reset and revoke active sessions for exposed accounts; rotate any credentials, API keys or certificates that may have been in the stolen data.
  • Assess regulatory notification duties (GDPR, NIS2, sector regulators) — many carry a 72-hour reporting clock from awareness.
  • Report the incident to your national CERT, CERT-IL (Israel), as required for your jurisdiction.
  • Monitor for the data appearing on Handala's leak site and across paste and breach channels, and brief downstream partners who may be exposed through you.

How we know this. Darkfield monitors public ransomware leak sites continuously, archiving every new disclosure and the data later released against the victim. Each entry on this page is sourced from the operator's own publication and cross-checked against complementary OSINT feeds (RansomLook, ransomware.live, RansomWatch). We do not collect or host stolen data — only the metadata, timestamps and screenshots needed to make the public disclosure searchable and accountable. Records here are corrected when the original post is edited, retracted, or merged with another disclosure.