US Deputy of Homeland Security: US-Israel to sign automated cyber information sharing agreement

The new cyber sharing agreement will allow Israel to prepare for and "defend against the next threat."

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
Operators in the Israel Navy cyber control room (photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
Operators in the Israel Navy cyber control room
(photo credit: IDF SPOKESPERSON'S UNIT)
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post on Monday, the US Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas discussed a new agreement that the US and Israel will sign Tuesday, which will automate their sharing of cyber data for the first time.
Mayorkas made the announcement and spoke with the Post at the cyber conference at Tel Aviv University, along with the university’s head of its cyber department, Maj. Gen. (res.) Isaac Ben-Israel.
Although the US and Israel have closely shared cyber information and signed several agreements in the past, the new agreement will qualitatively take the speed of sharing to an entirely different level, said the deputy secretary.
In a time period where the types of cyber attacks that hackers are using are constantly evolving, the speed at which governments share experiences from having been hacked can make the difference between helping an ally avoid being hacked or the helpful data arriving too late, he said.
Ben-Israel echoed Mayorkas on this issue stating that we “are always collecting data from cyber attacks, and the data about the attacks is on our computers, but sometimes we see it too late.”
But Ben-Israel said Israel is “developing new technologies...using a much larger data set,” which will hopefully operate fast enough to prepare for and “to defend against the next threat."
 
He noted that while bank robbers must work hard to rob a second one after robbing one bank, cyber hackers “can snap their fingers and replicate” their attacks on others unless countries share information fast enough “to protect against replication.”  


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