Israel Gets 20% Of Global Cybersecurity Investment
Cyber enemies can “hack our airlines and our fighter planes,” but cyber is also “creating unimaginable benefits” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month. Speaking at the Cyber Week conference at Tel Aviv University,
Netanyahu was only confirming what others have said, but it was the first time that the prime minister publicly admitted the scope of the threat to Israeli aviation.
Such hacking threats globally, “is not theoretical, but has already happened in the present.” Playing a mock video for the packed auditorium telling them that all of their financial information had been hacked and their trade secrets had been sent to their competitors, Netanyahu heavily emphasised the cyber threat to the country “in all the new areas” of technology.
However, at the same time, he said that Israel can succeed at the “ever-present race” of cyber and that “we are absolutely committed to protecting ourselves.”
He mentioned that, “Israel gets 20% of global investment in cyber security, punching 200 times above our weight.” Netanyahu said that he had purposely moved IDF unit 8200 (the Israeli NSA), cyber businesses and cyber academics to an area of Beersheba where they can work within 200 meters of each other.
The prime minister said that putting them all together “has tremendous advantages,” adding that there were also risks to the move, but that he was “willing to take risks because cyber security grows through cooperation” and because of the major potential business gains.
Further, he said that the country “spends enormous amounts of money” on the Shin Bet, Mossad and other Israeli cyber intelligence capabilities, but that getting business to do a portion of the cyber defense investment could be a strategic budget bonus in saving from government spending on cyber defense.
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