Of course the Israelis are serious about cyberwarfare, given that they’re really serious about security in general. The most well known Israeli cyberwar attack was in 2007 when Israel reportedly hacked in to Syrian air defense networks and hit the off switch, allowing IDF attack jets to penetrate Syrian air space unmolested. Graduates from the Israeli military and intelligence services cyber directorates have gone on to found vibrant IT companies in Israel.
Alon Ben-David, reporting from Israel, says the IDF has beefed up its cyberwar directorate in the last few years in response to the increased sophistication of groups like Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah. Now, Iran appears to be Israel’s primary cyber enemy:
“The threat has evolved from coordinated hackers’ attacks on Israeli internet sites (none of them considered a critical infrastructure) to more sophisticated attempts to access classified information. While the intruders at the beginning of the decade were mostly Palestinians, sometimes employing Russian hackers, in recent years most “E-tacks” arrive from Iran, and they include attempts to plant “Trojan horses” in Israeli computers.”
-- Greg
