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The Knesset - Israel

Claimed by Hellcat · listed 2 years ago

64 GB
Data size
20m
Age
since listed · data leaked

Status timeline

  1. ListedOct 25, 2024
  2. Data leakeddate unknown

At a glance

Group
Hellcat
Status
Data leaked
Country
Israel
Sector
Government
Listed on leak site
Oct 25, 2024
Data size
64 GB

About the victim

AI dossier — public-source company profile

The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Jerusalem. It comprises 120 members and serves as the primary lawmaking body of the Israeli government.

Industry
Government - Legislative
Address
Jerusalem, Israel
Employees
120-150
Founded
1949

Attack summary

Severity: critical — Confirmed exfiltration of 64 GB of sensitive data from a national legislative body, including internal communications and confidential government documents. This represents a breach of sovereign government infrastructure with potential national security implications.

Hellcat claims to have compromised the Knesset's secure networks and exfiltrated 64 GB of sensitive data, including internal communications and confidential documents. Data has been published.

critical

Data the group says was taken

AI dossier — extracted from the leak post
  • Internal communications
  • Confidential government documents

What the group claims

We have successfully compromised the Knesset's secure networks and extracted 64GB of sensitive data. This includes internal communications and confidential documents.

Sources

Source

Indexed 2 years 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 Hellcat

Hellcat is a recently emerged ransomware group first observed in October 2024, operating with apparent financial motivations based on their targeting patterns across multiple high-value sectors. The group's origin and potential state affiliations remain unclear due to their recent emergence, though their broad geographic targeting spanning the United States, China, Germany, France, and Israel suggests either a sophisticated international operation or the use of ransomware-as-a-service infrastructure. Limited public documentation exists regarding Hellcat's specific attack methodologies, encryption techniques, or whether they employ double extortion tactics involving data exfiltration prior to encryption, as major cybersecurity firms and government agencies have yet to publish detailed technical analyses of their operations. With only 20 documented victims to date, the group has not yet conducted any widely publicized major campaigns or drawn significant law enforcement attention, though their targeting of technology, education, government, and business services sectors indicates a focus on organizations likely to possess valuable data and have strong incentives to pay ransoms. Hellcat remains active as of current reporting, though their limited operational footprint and recent emergence make long-term assessment of their capabilities and persistence difficult to determine. The group has been linked to 20 public disclosures across our corpus. First observed on a leak site on October 25, 2024; most recent post April 10, 2025. The operation is currently inactive.

Timeline of this disclosure

  • October 25, 2024The Knesset - Israel listed by Hellcaton the group's public leak site
Data size
64 GB

Other recent disclosures by Hellcat

Hellcat has been linked to 20 public victims on Darkfield. A sample of the most recent:

See the full Hellcat dossier →

Sector and geography

This disclosure adds to ransomware activity in the Government sector, which has 685 disclosures indexed across all operators we track. Geographically, The Knesset - Israel is reported in Israel, a country with 156 ransomware disclosures in our corpus.

If your organisation is affected

A listing by Hellcat means The Knesset - Israel 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 Hellcat'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.