CyberwarfareIsraeli defense company launches cybersecurity solutions section

In recent months the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has increased its cyberdefense-related activities. Esti Peshin, director of the company’s cyber section and a veteran of the IDF’s hush-hush sigint Unit 8200, says IAI is now developing solutions for clients in Israel and abroad.

Peshin notes that the cyber section, based at the IAI subsidiary Elta, was launched in August.

“We have a national responsibility to be independent in this area. Israeli defense industries have to take lead role. We have the infrastructure and platforms to take the lead,” she stated.

The Turkish Weekly reports that the section has twenty-five employees.

Peshin told the Weekly that Israel’s – and other countries’ — critical networks were vulnerable even if not linked to the Internet.

“A disk-on-key can be given to an employee, who then plugs it into a system. It can broadcast information. It takes less than 30 seconds for a disk-on-key to go through all of the contents of a computer,” she added.

“Hackers can get to a network in many ways,” she continued.

“There is no network, computer or application that can’t be hacked. The weak link is the person accessing them.”

Governments wishing to break into the networks of other companies may establish front companies to distribute disk-on-keys as gifts or hand out USB phone chargers, creating dangerous traps.

“That’s all it takes,” Peshin said. “In order to have effective defenses, an intelligence component is a must. A prior warning is required. We need to know about intentions to attack and be able to take mitigating steps.”

This involves tracking the communications of hackers and being tuned in to their intentions.

“A cyber attack is an ongoing event,” she explained. “Attackers must know the structure of the network, who is working with it, and what defenses are in place. It’s very easy to get a list of employees, for example, by creating a fake social network identity.”

Finding whether a cyberattack is imminent depends on situational awareness and analyses of probabilities.

“The idea is to not just defend the perimeter of the network with firewalls, but to expand defenses through intelligence,” she said.

The Weekly notes that Elta’s clients in Israel come mainly for the country’s military, but the company’s cyber solutions are also being adapted for other customers, including governments looking to secure critical national infrastructure and financial institutions.

Peshin warned that cyberthreats have become more substantial, and that a competent and well-organized attacker can bring a country to a standstill, shutting off its power grid and traffic lights, or paralyzing an airport. Such cyberattacks can be launched without the perpetrator being traced, thus making effective deterrence impossible.

“That’s why we consider this to be an asymmetric dimension,” Peshin said.

One way of addressing the threat is working with ISPs to trace the steps of attackers, who use many international proxies to hide their origins.

“These are the building blocks that are needed for retribution,” she explained.

The Weekly notes that Elta employs hackers, who are tasked with building prototype solutions, testing them for weaknesses, and then passing them on to developers.

The developers write the algorithms and build the products.

“We’re a start-up, but with the backing of a company that earns $3.5 billion a year,” she said.

Ultimately, she implied in the interview, these defensive measures can be turned into offensive capabilities.

“Intelligence is a subset of attack,” Peshin said. “This is, first of all, a national mission.”