Iran targets Israel with growing number of cyberattacks
The vast majority of attacks have been thwarted in their early stages senior sources have told Globes, with businesses more vulnerable than government.
Since the start of December, Iranian sources have been responsible for a growing number of cyberattacks targeting Israeli government and privately-held companies in Israel and abroad, sources close to the matter have told Globes. The vast majority of the attacks have been thwarted in their early stages with others stopped later on and as far as is known no major damage has been inflicted.
According to a senior Israeli defense source, after several years of defensive operations and building digital protection systems with the assistance of agencies in China and Russia, the Iranians have now moved into the attack phase. The source added that last month saw a substantial rise in attack activities, perhaps to mark the first anniversary of the assassination of the head of the I
WhatsApp Privacy Changes Roil Users, Governments Uri Cohen
Facebook under growing scrutiny after new data-sharing policy with the messaging platform announced
The Facebook-owned messaging platform WhatsApp on Monday lost a prominent user, when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he was quitting the popular app because of the latest changes in its privacy policy.
Ankara’s premier has hardly been the only one. The Turkish alternative to WhatsApp, called BiP, which Erdogan promised he would migrate to, gained close to 1.5 million users in the past 48 hours alone. More popular messaging services like Signal and Telegram have attracted hundreds of millions of users around the world as well.
Israeli citizens living abroad are often also required to pay taxes in Israel. However, recently the Tax Authority has increasingly been blocking the option of paying taxes from outside the country through its systems, providing no explanation. For example, an Israeli living in Germany told Calcalist that his request to pay taxes from abroad was recently rejected by the authority.
Fears concerning hacking attempts on government databases are nothing new, but the importance of the information held by the Tax Authority can hardly be overestimated. Besides the account details of countless tax-paying Israelis, and the massive sums it collects, the authority also has a vast amount of data about businesses run by Israelis, both locally and abroad. A breach of such systems could be extremely dangerous and therefore the Israel National Cyber Directorate and the defense establishment have placed a special emphasis on the authority s database and have recommended removing the option o
Israel must study and learn from prospective Russian cyber breach of US networks
Israel must study and learn from prospective Russian cyber breach of US networks
Former Shin Bet technology division head Ron Shamir says U.S. cyber defenders are experiencing a “very difficult hour.” Former Israeli official Micky Aharonson notes that the massive attack could be part of Russia’s attempt to strengthen its negotiating position with Washington.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the National CERT at the cyber park in Beersheva on July 27, 2017, with Buki Carmeli, head of the National Cyber Defense Authority, and Eviatar Matania, head of the National Cyber Bureau in the Prime Minister s Office. Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO.
Our friends at The Record talked with Shtokhamer about lessons learned at CERT. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
TR: You recently stepped down as executive director of Israel’s National CERT. Which measures or initiatives did you take while at Israel’s CERT that you’re most proud of or were the most impactful?
LS: There have been a lot of things we’ve done the last couple of years. I think one of the most important ones was establishing our national information sharing platform. After a few months it became our immune platform it would help immunize entire organizations in Israel by having a full API for indicators. That’s how we had the possibility, for example, to share indicators by the click of a button, to share it to an API and have it received by monitoring and patching systems in less than a second. In addition to that, we established some new sectorial CERTs. I was the founder of the financial CERT, we have an energy CERT, we