“We work 24/7 and are prepared for any scenario”

The data revealed by the National Cyber ​​Array illustrates how hot this arena is: since the beginning of the fighting, there have been about 50 significant intrusion events into organizational systems, in which attackers succeeded in deleting critical information and disrupting activity. At the same time, repeated attempts to take control of camera systems were detected and stopped, as part of an effort to gather intelligence and even to personally target security and academic officials. Thousands of phishing attempts, Internet fraud, were removed, with the response time shortened dramatically – from hours to only tens of minutes – in a critical race where every minute could save heavy financial damage. Alongside this, hundreds of targeted alerts were sent to organizations at risk, a figure that illustrates the extent of the threats and the intensity of the campaign.

Want to attack anything

Obstruction in the local authority

When Mizrahi is asked to give an example of a significant attack attempt that was thwarted in the current campaign, he says that the target in the incident was one of the largest local authorities: “It was a powerful attempt by an attacker, which I can’t go into too much detail about. We were able to foil it in time, before he was able to cause damage there and get a high level of information from his hold.”

The National Cyber ​​Array was established in February 2015 to protect cyber space in the State of Israel and to work to promote Israel’s strength in the field. The array operates under the Prime Minister’s Office and reports directly to it, and the head of the array, Yossi Charadi, also serves as the government’s cyber advisor. “We have been working over the years with the critical infrastructures of the State of Israel and with the vital bodies with the aim of increasing the resilience and cyber defense of those organizations, so that there is no harm to functional continuity,” emphasizes Mizrahi. “We are working to raise the level of protection in the Israeli economy.”