- Omri Goren Gorochovsky was accused of espionage.
- He worked for Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
- Officials said he offered to sell information to Sombra.
On Thursday, a man employed in the home of Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz was accused of attempting to spy for Sombra hackers allegedly linked to Iran.
According to the indictment published by the Israeli Ministry of Justice, on November 4, Omri Goren Gorochovsky, a 37-year-old resident of the central city of Lorde, was arrested.
The indictment alleges that Gorochevsky and his partner worked as cleaners at Gantz’s home in Roshhain, outside Tel Aviv.
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Gorochovsky allegedly contacted the Black Shadow hacker organization via Telegram around October 31 and offered to pass information from Gantz’s home.
Black Shadow was blamed for a large-scale hacking attack on an Israeli Internet service provider last month.
The Israeli fee schedule described Black Shadow as “Iranian-related.”
Israel used a pseudonym to say that the suspect “proclaimed himself to be a person working in the Israeli Defense Minister’s house, and pointed out that he was capable of assisting the organization in various ways.”
According to the bill, Gorochovsky told the Black Shadow representative that he would communicate information through the malware he proposed to implant in the USB device in order to obtain “money.”
The indictment stated that in order to prove his credibility, Gorochowski sent photos of various items in the minister’s house.
These include his desk, a package with an IP address sticker, souvenirs from Gantz’s previous role as Chief of Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces, family photos, and property tax payment receipts.
In a separate statement, Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency stated that Gorochovsky did not have access to “confidential materials.”
Shin Bet says:
Therefore, no such material was transferred from him to the sources he contacted.
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