Is Israel ready to counter massive cyber attacks?

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By ARIE EGOZI

The recent Ransom Cyber attacks on some of Israel’s organizations have again focused the attention to the imminent threat. 

Is Israel ready? Well, the answers vary but many think that more should be done and fast.

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, has  assumed 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 as 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 on this with 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 experts say that more should be done to mobilize all the assets that Israel has , to defend the Israeli vital systems including its ATC system from organized or sporadic Cyber attacks.

What is very clear is that many of the budget 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.

The experts say that currently too many bodies deal with the threat while only a concentrated effort may do the job.

But in Israel decisions are often only recommendations and that is a big danger.