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TEL AVIV — Israel will increase its annual cyber defense spending by 50 percent to support a program to protect security networks and critical industry and commercial entities from cyber attack.
The multiyear budget increase — from 200 million shekels ($52.6 million) to 300 million shekels ($78 million) — will be managed by the National Cyber Directorate (NCD), established in August to coordinate developments in the military, industrial and academic sectors.
The directorate will be run by Evyatar Matanya, a Tel Aviv University scholar with a background in military intelligence and defense research and development, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in December.
“Cyber is becoming the central element of our national security, and we must provide a strong defense,” Netanyahu told cabinet ministers later. “In this field, there are aspects that extend beyond defense; aspects pertaining to the economy and to science. This directorate will coordinate all of them.”
Netanyahu said the new NCD would serve a governmentwide goal to establish Israel as a leader in cyber protection.
“Israel already is among the most dominant cyber forces in the world, and we intend not only to remain so but to climb even further,” he said.
The government expects to attract an additional 200 million shekels annually from the corporate sector, whose technologies, intellectual property and protocols will form the foundation of Israel’s cyber industrial base.
One of the programs under review is a national cyber defense shield to monitor and protect military and commercial networks, said retired Maj. Gen. Isaac Ben-Israel, who heads the committee that will oversee the NCD.
Ben-Israel, a former lawmaker and director of defense research and development, led a yearlong study recommending creation of the NCD. He said Israel’s large defense firms and some 150 smaller companies from the commercial and high-tech sector have expressed interest in participating in the project.
Private-sector investment and participation is crucial, he said, not only for protecting operations and revenue streams but for establishing Israel as a leading global partner and exporter of cybersecurity-related systems and services.
“Israel is like an island in terms of Internet communication. We’re fairly isolated with a small number of pipes, so we can develop technology that monitors everything coming into the country,” Ben-Israel said, adding that the NCD, in coming months, would evaluate the costs of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary shield against cyber attack.
This story appeared in the January February issue of C4ISR Journal.
