TEL AVIV, (Reuters) – Israel is parlaying civilian technological advances into a cyberwarfare capability against its enemies, a senior Israeli general said yesterday in a rare public disclosure about the secret programme.
Using computer networks for espionage — by hacking into databanks — or to carry out sabotage by planting so-called “malicious software” in sensitive control systems has been quietly weighed in Israel for tackling arch-foes like Iran.
In a policy address, Major-General Amos Yadlin, chief of military intelligence, listed vulnerability to hacking among national threats that also included the Iranian nuclear project, Syria and Islamist guerrillas along the Jewish state’s borders. Yadlin said Israeli armed forces had the means to provide network security and launch cyber attacks of their own.
“I would like to point out in this esteemed forum that the cyberwarfare field fits well with the state of Israel’s defence doctrine,” he told the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv University think tank.
“This is an enterprise that is entirely blue and white (Israeli) and does not rely on foreign assistance or technology. It is a field that is very well known to young Israelis, in a country that was recently crowned a ‘start-up nation’,” he said, referring to Israel’s civilian high-tech industry.
Cyberwarfare teams nestle deep within Israel’s spy agencies, which have experience in traditional sabotage techniques and are cloaked in official secrecy and censorship
