Head of Israeli cyber spy unit exposed … by his own privacy mistake

Brandon Vigliarolo reports:

Protecting your privacy online is hard. So hard, in fact, that even a top Israeli spy who managed to stay incognito for 20 years has found himself exposed after one basic error.

The spy is named Yossi Sariel allegedly heads Israel’s Unit 8200 – a team of crack infosec experts comparable to the USA’s National Security Agency or the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters. Now he’s been confirmed as the author of a 2021 book titled “The Human Machine Team” about the intelligence benefits of pairing human agents with advanced AI.

Sariel – who wrote the book under the oh-so-anonymous pen name “Brigadier General YS” – made a crucial mistake after an investigation by The Guardian which found an electronic copy of Sariel’s book available on Amazon “included an anonymous email that can easily be traced to Sariel’s name and Google account.”