Time to play offense

In the latest round of the cyberwar, the damage to Israel's image is much bigger than any actual 'physical' damage. It is as if a vandal passed by and threw stones through the lobby windows of Sheba and Assuta Hospitals, and then did the same thing to Ha'aretz and the Israel Festival. With the windows shattered a mess was made, but the stores themselves were left intact and the goods inside were unharmed.

Therefore, in actuality, we can all afford to calm down. In the cyberworld, a system's structure is what needs to be protected. And the structure - as was the case Wednesday and in all the previous attacks - was not compromised. It is not pleasant when a website crashes, and when financial transactions are involved things get more complex, but real damage will happen only when the attacker manages to infiltrate the cyberstructure. An example of structural damage is the altering of headlines and content when hacking a newspaper's website. A scarier scenario involves the hacking of a hospital's cyberstructure, from which a hacker can change test results, medication dosages and how medical equipment functions.

As of Wednesday – and one should knock on the nearest piece of wood that nothing changes – this is not the scenario we find ourselves in. There are two reasons: the systems are relatively protected, and the hackers are limited in their capabilities. If a state-run apparatus was behind the cyberattacks, as opposed to a group of hackers, and if this state had the means and capabilities of, say, China or Russia – we would see real damage. It would be the same type of damage done in Georgia on the eve of the Russian invasion in 2008, and the same that was suffered by Lockheed Martin in 2009 when blueprints for its F-35 advanced fighter jet were stolen from its computer systems.

Despite the calls to lower the levels of panic, these latest incidents are also a warning sign: we are under intense attack; and those who want to cause real damage may ultimately succeed. Today it is a group of Saudi hackers, tomorrow it will be Iran – which last week already conducted a "test run" on cybersystems in Azerbaijan. It is true, Israel's defense establishment is relatively protected on the cyber front (although not indefinitely immune). The civilian systems, however, are much less protected and we should be concerned that Israel's Cyber Command – as promised by the prime minister's office – is taking too long to get off the ground.

And after all this gloom – a ray of optimism: a problem can also present an opportunity, and the cyberdefense problem is a huge opportunity. Once upon a time, in order to retrieve an important document from inside an Arab leader's bureau you had to organize a complex operation, with spies and commandos, with optics and codes. It would take months, cost a fortune, and in the end would succeed in achieving what today can happen quickly, cheaply and with only a tap of the keyboard. In this world, theoretically, a missile can be retargeted to hit whoever launched it, and a fighter jet can be stalled before taking off on a sortie - with a tap of the keyboard. This is the horizon Israel must aim for and must lead the global race toward – for its defense, but mainly for its offense.

טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו