Israeli trusted computing experts thwarted 2017 Iran cyber warfare attack on country’s missile warning

TEL AVIV – The Israeli military detected and blocked an Iranian cyber attack on Israel's missile warning system in 2017, preventing a potentially life-threatening situation in which Israeli citizens could no longer rely on the sirens that alert them to an incoming attack. The Times of Israel reports. Continue reading original article

The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:

27 Feb. 2019 -- The Iranian effort was first spotted in 2017 and, once its target was understood, trusted computing experts at the Israel Defense Forces worked to block the cyber attack and track the hackers, says Brig. Gen. (res.) Noam Sha’ar, the outgoing head of the cyber defense division of the military’s Cyber Defense Directorate.

“We dealt with them and built another barrier and another monitoring system to make sure we could stop them if they tried again,” Shaar says. Israeli and Western defense officials long have warned that Iran was a world leader in cyber warfare capabilities, having invested considerable money and resources in the field.

Also last month, cyber security specialists warned of large-scale attacks on key aspects of the internet’s infrastructure, threatening the global system of web traffic, with some pointing the finger at Iran. According to cyber security firm FireEye, the attacks might date back to at least 2017 and appeared to be coming from Iran.

Related: Iran–U.S. RQ-170 incident has defense industry saying 'never again' to unmanned vehicle hacking

Related: U.S. warfighters work aggressively to protect computers and networks, just as they would do to protect territory

Related: The shadowy world of cyber warfare

John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics

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