US strike on Iran sends online ripples: major Saudi leak, DDoS on Truth Social

A pro-Iranian threat actor has dumped the information of thousands of visitors and athletes from one of Saudi Arabia’s major sporting events, the Saudi Games.

The Saudi Games is said to be the largest national sporting event, featuring over 53 sports and 6,000 athletes.

The data leak in the form of SQL dumps was announced on Cyber Fattah's official Telegram channel on June 22nd, following the DDoS attack on Truth Social after the US attacked Iran’s nuclear sites.

The leak is most likely associated with the Saudi Games 2024 website and contains multiple databases. According to the provided screenshots, the dump includes sensitive information on visitors, athletes, and government officials, such as passport copies, bank statements, and medical forms.

“This is an example of Iran using data breaches as part of a larger anti-US, anti-Israel, and anti-Saudi propaganda activity in cyberspace, targeting major sports and social events,” Resecurity, a security company that first spotted the data leak, shared on its blog post.

According to the company’s researchers, threat actors aim to capitalize on the role of Saudi Arabia and the US in regional relationships and security.

“Several Hezbollah-linked, Hamas-linked, and pro-Iranian groups in Iraq also amplified the incident by integrating it with targeted propaganda activities via digital media channels,” Resecurity said.

Following the US airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facility, a pro-Iranian hacktivist group, 313 Team, claimed responsibility for a DDoS attack on Trump’s Truth Social platform.

As reported previously, DDoS seems to be one of the hacktivists’ favorite tools in the cyberwar, with Israel being the most popular target.

As expected, the escalation of the conflict is sending ripples through the world. Cybersecurity experts are now closely watching the cyber realm, as they expect more cyberattacks and other hacktivism attempts to target the conflicting parties and their allies alike.