The Covid-19 pandemic has turned Israel’s world-respected cybersecurity professionals into frontline soldiers in a fight against what some see as a looming cyber pandemic.
Governments, companies, medical facilities and individuals are all potential victims of malware, identity theft and data stealing.
Earlier this month, Israel’s Ministry of Defense revealed what it called a successfully thwarted foreign cyber-attack targeting Israel’s defense industries.
Posing as managers, CEOs, HR officials and representatives of international companies, the would-be attackers built fake profiles on Linkedin and contacted employees in the defense industry with tempting job offers. In the process, they hoped to infiltrate the employees’ computers and gather sensitive security info.
Another major phenomenon keeping workers at Israel’s 436 cybersecurity companies busy is heightened vulnerability caused by remote work and education.
An April survey of 3,000 remote employees in the US, UK, France and Germany showed that work-from-home habits – including reusing passwords, accessing corporate systems on insecure “BYOD” devices and letting family members use corporate devices – are putting critical business systems and sensitive data at risk of hacking, according to CyberArk.
“The rate at which cyberattacks are taking place is increasing,” acknowledges Deborah Housen-Couriel, “but as time goes on we have better information on the direction, pattern and types of attacks.”
Housen-Couriel honed her legal expertise in the 1990s at Israel’s Ministry of Communications, which was then regulating the brand-new “plumbing” of cyberspace – antennas, microwave transmitters, undersea cables and satellites – that allows us to communicate digitally over the electromagnetic spectrum of radio waves.
Today, she is chief legal officer and VP-regulation for Tel Aviv-based Konfidas Digital cybersecurity and data protection consulting firm. She’s an advisory board member of the Federmann Cyber Security Research Center at Hebrew University, and teaches international and Israeli cyber law at several universities.-- More...
ISRAEL21c was founded in 2001, in the wake of the Second Intifada, to broaden public understanding of Israel beyond typical portrayals in the mainstream media.
The organization’s founders – Israeli-American technology executives – understood the great power of the Internet and developed a first-of-its kind online product with global appeal and reach.
The Covid-19 pandemic has turned Israel’s world-respected cybersecurity professionals into frontline soldiers in a fight against what some see as a looming cyber pandemic.
Governments, companies, medical facilities and individuals are all potential victims of malware, identity theft and data stealing.
