Was Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel hit by ransomware?

Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel was listed by the Handala ransomware operation (Israel), and stolen data was published on the group's leak site. Darkfield tracks this disclosure with the original leak post, screenshot and group context.

Who is the Handala ransomware group?

Handala is a ransomware operator tracked by Darkfield. See the full operator dossier for its known victims, sectors targeted, IOCs and leak-site infrastructure.

What data was leaked in the Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel breach?

Handala published data attributed to Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel. Darkfield captured the leak post and a screenshot of the listing.

Ransomware victim disclosure

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i24NEWS

listed as Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel · Claimed by Handala · listed 5 months ago

Age

since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

ListedJan 21, 2026
Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group: Handala
Status: Data leaked
Country: Israel
Sector: Telecommunication
Listed on leak site: Jan 21, 2026

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

i24NEWS is an Israeli international 24-hour news television channel broadcasting in English, French, and Arabic, headquartered in Jaffa, Tel Aviv. It covers global and Middle Eastern news and is distributed across multiple continents via cable, satellite, and streaming platforms. The channel is known for its multilingual live news coverage targeting international audiences.

Industry: Television Broadcasting & News Media
Founded: 2013

Attack summary

Severity: medium — The group claims a deliberate breach of a media/broadcasting entity with no ransom demanded and no explicit enumeration of exfiltrated regulated data or confirmed data publication. The post is largely a narrative announcement with limited verifiable proof details, warranting medium severity.

Handala claims to have deliberately breached i24NEWS as a calculated operation conducted several weeks prior to the post, framing it as intentional disruption rather than opportunistic. The post implies exfiltration or operational compromise but does not explicitly enumerate the data categories or confirm encryption.

medium

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post

Internal communications (implied)
Broadcasting system access (implied)
Operational data (implied)

What the group claims

Several weeks ago, the breach of the i24 channel was not a mere coincidence or an act of random disruption, it was a calculated operation executed by Handala. Unlike many who seek validation through constant announcements and empty proclamations, we operate from the shadows, letting our actions speak louder than words. Our silence is not…

Sources

Leak posthttps://handala-hack.to/ignite-chaos-at-your-own-risk-i24-channel-hacked/

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

January 21, 2026Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel 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

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Telecommunication sector, which has 54 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel is reported in Israel, a country with 78 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Handala means Ignite Chaos at Your Own Risk: i24 Channel 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.
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.