Israel, US, UK Increase Cyber Cooperation

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Israel’s Ministry of Defence and the US Department of Defence agreed to increase cyber-defence cooperation between the two countries, according to Army Technology. Representatives raised several ways in which the allies could strengthen cooperation in several key areas, including the deployment of the US National Guard’s cyber security squadron against ISIS.

Information sharing is key for successful cyber-defence, said Tim Erlin, director of security and risk at Tripwire, a cyber-security vendor. “The addition of cyber-attacks to theatre of war is a growing trend,” he said. “We shouldn’t be surprised that existing international defence cooperation might be extended to this new battlefront.”

Paul Fletcher of Alert Logic, a Security-as-a-Service solution provider, went further and said: “It’s possible that there has already been some collaboration between these two military cyber-teams in the past, and this announcement is a way to formalize the relationship and establish specific protocols for communication and information sharing.”

“Yes, this joint capability will certainly help fight cyber-terrorism threats. It will help just from the perspective of adding more highly skilled cybersecurity professionals in the fight against cyber-terrorists. Only time will tell if this strategy will be more effective than trying to install backdoors in technology.”

Similarly, in February the UK and Israel announced that they plan to extend their cooperation in cyber-defence of national infrastructure installations. The countries are strengthening the collaboration of their respective Cyber Emergency Response Teams while simultaneously launching a new academic partnership in the incipient field of cyber-physical security.

“Information and intelligence-sharing are critical to success in cyber-warfare. No single country can collect and process all of the data necessary to maintain strategic and tactical superiority,” said Leo Taddeo, chief security officer at Cryptzone.