Cleared for publication: An Israeli who worked as a cleaner at Defense Minister Benny Gantz's home was arrested earlier this month on suspicions of espionage.
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The Israel Security Agency said Thursday that a joint Shin Bet-Israel Police investigation revealed that Omri Goren, 37, from Lod, reportedly contacted the Iran-affiliated Black Shadow hacker group of his own accord a few days before his arrest, and offered to provide information from within the defense minister's home.
Goren reportedly contacted the group via the Telegram messaging service. In exchange for an undisclosed sum of money, he offered to install spyware on the minister's computer that would allow access to it by a third party.
He also supposedly took photographs of Gantz's desk, computers, a tablet, a locked safe, a shredder, papers with IP address, a package with a label listing the souvenirs that Gantz received as IDF chief of staff, framed photos of the family, municipal tax bills and more.
Some of the photos Goren shared with the group to prove that he did indeed have access to the statesman's home. Shit Bet stressed howered that Goren was arrested before he could do any damage and as he had no access to classified materials, he did not share them with the hackers.
The investigation was conducted with Gantz's knowledge. Once the investigation concluded, the Central District Prosecution filed an indictment against Goren for alleged espionage.
The Shin Bet said that in light of the incident, it has set out to research ways on how to limit "the possibility of cases like this repeating themselves in the future."
Gantz office stressed that due to exisitng information security protocols at the defense minister's home, Goren were never privy to classified informaiton, nor was he able to hand them over to his contacts.
Goren has a criminal record that includes five previous convictions between the years 2002-2013, and 14 police cases in total over various offenses, including two bank robbery charges, burglaries and thefts. For this, Goren was sentenced to four years in prison, with his last sentence, for robbery offenses, being for four years.
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