Israelis, Saudis Talk Cyberhacking in War Terms

On January 3, a Saudi hacker group claimed that it had stolen half a million Israeli credit cards. The Bank of Israel claims their exposure is information on only 15,000 credit cards, all of which were immediately blocked. The hacker group’s stated purpose was to see Israeli cards fall into disrepute, “like the Nigerian cards.” The cracker, “0xOmar” is identified as the individual performing the hack, and says he plans to publish information on an additional 200 cards per day.
In response to the Saudi hack release of user credit information, an Israeli hacker going by the name of “OxOmer” (“O” instead of zero, “e” instead of “a”), aka Omer Cohen, has published the information on hundreds of Saudi credit cards. Cohen, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), says he published the information as a “deterrent.” The card info was apparently used to purchase goods on Saudi websites, thereby ratcheting things up a little by not just releasing information, but stealing funds.
Cohen believes his government has not responded quickly nor strongly enough. This “deterrent” language, of course, mirrors the military language of providing overwhelming negative consequences to keep an opponent from acting in the future. The news of the world does indeed talk up electronic hacking and cracking though the use of military terms, but there are those who argue that cyberwar doesn’t really exist – at least not yet.
I would expect that none of the credit card information released belonged to either of the hackers, but rather to “innocent bystanders.” Cohen apologized if any innocent people were hurt by his actions.
In this sense, at least, this small conflict mirrors (however weakly) the world’s real wars with their “collateral damage.”
A columnist in the conservative Jerusalem Post says that the credit cards really belong to users living in the United States, but that in any case, this kind of cyber-fighting is better than fighting by using objects of the material world, such as bullets or missiles.
And really, who’s to say he doesn’t make a very good point?