Israel is developing “a national cyber defensive envelope” – a multi-layered cyber defence strategy leveraging automated computerised systems and highly-trained personnel that provide intelligence, early warning, passive and active defence, and offensive capabilities across civil-military networks.

Israel’s security establishment is currently debating the political and military assessments and lessons of the war in the Gaza Strip in July-August 2014, known as ‘Operation Protective Edge’. There is a consensus on the widening spectrum and increasing sophistication of cyber threats. During the conflict, Israel faced large-scale cyber-attacks on its civilian communications infrastructure, including denial of service (DDoS) and Domain Network System (DNS) attacks from both state and non-state actors, traced to Qatar and Iran – Hamas’ main benefactors.

Cyber attackers also targeted the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) – its websites and communications networks. The Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) announced that these attacks against government and military networks had been contained, while in the civilian sector the attacker’s intent to cause maximum disruption was not achieved. Still, cyberattacks – as projected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – are viewed as “one of the four main threats to Israel.”

…Michael Raska is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.