Iran hacked a phone belonging to former justice minister Ayelet Shaked during Israel’s 12-day war with the Islamic Republic in June, Hebrew media outlets reported Thursday, the latest development in Tehran’s ongoing effort to spy on and hack current and former Israeli officials.
Iran tried several times to hack the former Yamina party leader’s phone, and succeeded in getting her to click a link that allowed access to her device, Channel 12 news reported, without citing a source.
It added that the Shin Bet informed her of the hack around two weeks after it occurred.
The Ynet news site, citing unnamed associates of Shaked, said the hack only compromised her Telegram account, which contained nothing of interest.
The news outlets reported that Shaked had previously been the target of Iranian hacking attempts.
In 2016 and 2017, while serving as justice minister, she was warned by then-Shin Bet director Nadav Argaman that Iran was spying on her and listening in on her phone conversations, the reports said.
Former Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman, in a television interview aired March 13, 2025. (Screen capture/Channel 12)
Shaked left political life in 2022 after her party didn’t cross the electoral threshold, but she has indicated that she intends to return.
Iran is also trying to spy on other officials, including ministerial aides, and the Shin Bet on Thursday sent out new protocols to officials not to click on unknown links, among other measures, Channel 12 reported.
Since the Hamas-led October 7 massacre, Iranian operatives and cybercrime groups aligned with the Khamenei regime are said to have escalated their cyberattacks on Israeli government and private sector infrastructure. In retaliation, suspected Israeli-aligned hackers have launched their own cyber offensives, targeting Iranian critical infrastructure, including gas stations.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities say they have ferreted out dozens of citizens allegedly recruited by Iran for espionage and other activities, from plotting assassinations to spray-painting pro-Iran slogans on cars since October 7.
As of last month, law enforcement had arrested at least 45 suspects involved in 25 separate cases since October 7, 2023, an Israel Police spokesman told The Times of Israel. Charges have been filed against 40 of them, according to a security official.
Security forces arrest two residents of the northern Druze village of Mas’ade on suspicion of spying for Iran’s IRGC Quds Force, in a photo cleared for publication on December 6, 2024. (Israel Police)
The unlikely operatives, from diverse walks of life, are usually ordinary civilians contacted by Iranian intelligence officers online. The effort appears to be part of a mass recruitment scheme by Tehran to gather intelligence on Israel’s alleged nuclear and military sites, as well as key Israeli figures such as defense officials and top scientists.
The common thread linking these suspects is not ideology but the promise of quick cash. Spies usually begin by carrying out seemingly innocuous tasks for small sums of money, which quickly escalate into severe offenses such as intelligence gathering and even assassination plots, the indictments show.
Despite the effort, Tehran hasn’t yet succeeded in taking out any of the Israeli targets in its crosshairs, though there have been several close calls. There are also suspicions that intelligence gathered by spies could have helped Iran target key sites during the war in June, in which the Islamic Republic fired hundreds of ballistic missiles at Israel.
