Protecting the Israeli Aviation Infrastructure

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By ARIE EGOZI

A big effort is being made to protect the Israeli aviation infrastructure from Cyber attacks.

The threat is real and imminent. A cyber attack on Israeli infrastructure may include air traffic control installations. In recent weeks, Israel has been under a constant Cyber attack and the government has ordered the general security service to take every needed step to counter those attacks.

The National Cyber Defence Authority (NCDA) unit, which is responsible for protecting Israel’s national infrastructures against cyber attacks, will assume protection of banks and mobile carriers. Sources said that the air traffic control is also included in the list.

Israeli officials consider the Cyber attacks as an act of war and some were quoted saying that “an enemy should be treated like an enemy”. This means that the proper Israeli organizations, will try and locate the source of the attacks and make an effort to neutralize it.

As it looks now, this is an all out war, and the concerns are high as signs prove that vital national installations are targeted almost daily.

The Israeli ATC system works very closely with that of the Israeli Air Force (IAF).Therefore any attempt to disrupt one of them will affect the other and may cause chaos with “very extreme scenarios”.

So the decision that was made in recent days is to mobilize all the assets that Israel has, to defend the Israeli vital systems including its ATC system from organized or sporadic Cyber attack.

What is very clear is that many of the budgets that were traditionally channeled to the deployment of advanced systems that are aimed at defending Israel from attacks either by missiles, rockets or enemy aircraft, will be rerouted now to the new Cyber war.

Israeli organizations have been attacked by Cyber forces and many were defeated.

The need to protect the aviation systems is very clear. “Its a daily war against attacks from many places around the globe,” a source close to the subject said.