Often, the best way to get something is to simply ask for it. That’s probably what the Israeli government thought when it sent an email to several American researchers and firms who make so-called zero-days, tools that take advantage of vulnerabilities in software that are unknown to the company that makes the software.

Experts have obtained a copy of the letter, which more than half a dozen sources described as unsolicited and unusual in how blunt and direct it was. Experts confirmed that at least five American firms received the letter, and multiple sources told us it was sent to many more.

Back in February, it was hard drive lights that leaked data. Now, the side-channel experts at Israel's Ben-Gurion University have applied a similar principle to routers. The attraction of signalling from a router is clear: is you can get the router to leak admin credentials, you don't just p0wn one machine, but probably the whole network too.

It's correspondingly more challenging than taking over one unit, though: as well as needing a sensor with line-of-sight to the router, you have to compromise the router. If you've go control of the router, Mordechai Guri's team developed firmware, dubbed “xLED”, to adds LED control to the router's operation.

A few hours after dark one evening earlier this month, a small quadcopter drone lifted off from the parking lot of Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel. It soon trained its built-in camera on its target, a desktop computer’s tiny blinking light inside a third-floor office nearby.

The pinpoint flickers, emitting from the LED hard drive indicator that lights up intermittently on practically every modern Windows machine, would hardly arouse the suspicions of anyone working in the office after hours. But in fact, that LED was silently winking out an optical stream of the computer’s secrets to the camera floating outside.

A group of highly sophisticated state-sponsored hackers is spying on the Israeli military by hacking into the personal Android phones of individual soldiers to monitor their activities and steal data.

A newly released research by Lookout and Kaspersky suggests that more than 100 Israeli servicemen from the Israeli Defense Force are believed to have been targeted with spyware. Dubbed ViperRAT, the malware has specifically been designed to hijack Israeli soldiers’ Android-based smartphones and remotely exfiltrate data of high value, including photos and audio recordings, directly from the compromised devices.

Top Israeli politicians want the US to stop "systematically spying" on Israel after revelations that the NSA intercepted emails of former top brass. Much to everybody's surprise, the Prime Minister’s Office has chosen to stifle the scandal, however.

"The secret is out," Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said on Sunday. "The US is systematically spying on the defense and diplomatic leadership here in Israel. Is this how friends treat each other?" Housing Minister Uri Ariel said on Israel Radio he expected the US to admit wrongdoing.

The New York Times cites documents leaked by Edward Snowden as revealing that the US intelligence operatives covertly monitored Israeli drones and missile systems while simultaneously exchanging intelligence with the Israeli Defense Forces.

The US State Department has declines to confirm or deny the report.

Washington's National Security Agency spied on "high priority Israeli military targets," The New York Times reported on Nov. 3 in a 7-page article based on documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The in-depth overview details highly classified documents leaked by Snowden.

The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.

Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis.