While 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 cyberthreats. 

During the conflict, Israel faced large-scale cyberattacks on its civilian communications infrastructure, including denial of service and Domain Network System attacks from both state and nonstate actors, traced to Qatar and Iran ― Hamas’ main benefactors.

Cyberattackers also targeted the Israel Defense Forces ― 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 Defense and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.