JERUSALEM, July 3 (Xinhua) -- The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced on Tuesday that it foiled a plot to spy on soldiers through malicious cellphone applications.

A senior officer in the intelligence directorate told reporters that Hamas was behind the plot, saying it shows Hamas has expanded its cyber capabilities.

The first step was to make an acquaintance through Facebook and then send the application links to soldiers' phones after getting their numbers. The applications will then install spyware that runs backstage continuously in their phones.

The Israeli military, which became aware of such attempts in early 2017 when a similar plot was foiled, has since increased its efforts to raise awareness among its ranks.

When soldiers started to report about receiving suspicious messages a few weeks ago, the IDF launched the operation "Broken Heart" and successfully uncovered three apps it says operated by Hamas on Google Play.

According to the senior officer, the three apps were downloaded approximately 100 times by soldiers and a few hundred times by civilians.

The first two were dating apps called Glancelove and Winkchat, while the third one, Golden Cup, was intensely marketed on social media recently as an app meant to update users on the World Cup being held in Russia. They are no longer available on Google Play.

The apps are supposed to work as "silent terrorists" by determining the location of the soldiers, collecting their text messages, retrieving the visual content and activating the phone's camera, according to the intelligence officer.

But there was no known damage and no senior ranking officials or special operation soldiers were targets of the plot, the officer added.