29 January 2013

Israeli Troops Swap Guns for Computers as Cyber Attacks Rise


At an army base outside Tel Aviv, soldiers sit in front of screens glued to scrolling colored computer code, keyboards at the ready to deflect attacks.
They’re Israel’s cyber defense team in training, among the uniformed men and women learning how to stalk hackers and pounce on virtual enemies as the state shields everything from ministry websites to the systems running the Tel Aviv stock market.
“To become one of the leading countries in cyber security, we have to act quickly to ensure that everyone will understand Israel is on its way to becoming a leading cyber-nation,” Rami Efrati, head of the civilian division of the National Cyber Bureau, said in an interview at the year-old agency this month. “Cyber security can be a national growth engine.”
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Israeli government networks are among the most highly attacked in the world, with daily assaults numbering in the tens of thousands, the Soufan Group, a New York-based security adviser, said in a Jan. 14 report.
Two months ago, civilian computer technicians sat in front of a bank of screens in a Jerusalem government building deflecting millions of attempted attacks on Israeli government websites as the country’s air force struck the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and rockets hit Israel’s towns and cities.
Palestinian militants in Gaza consider cyber part of their resistance to Israel. “Our professional hackers never sleep,” said the spokesman for a pro-Hamas group who goes by the name Abu Mujahid. Islamic Jihad, which like Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S. and the European Union, said in November its operatives hacked into 5,000 mobile phones belonging to senior Israeli army officers.
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