Spymaster sees Israel as world cyberwar leader

By Dan Williams
TEL AVIV
Reuters
Dec 15, 2009

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Israel is using its civilian technological advances
to enhance cyberwarfare capabilities, the senior Israeli spymaster said
on Tuesday in a rare public disclosure about the secret program.

Using computer networks for espionage -- by hacking into databases -- or
to carry out sabotage through so-called "malicious software" planted in
sensitive control systems has been quietly weighed in Israel against
arch-foes like Iran.

In a policy address, Major-General Amos Yadlin, chief of military
intelligence, listed vulnerability to hacking among national threats
that also included the Iranian nuclear project, Syria and Islamist
guerrillas along the Jewish state's borders.

Yadlin said Israeli armed forces had the means to provide network
security and launch cyber attacks of their own.

"I would like to point out in this esteemed forum that the cyberwarfare
field fits well with the state of Israel's defense doctrine," he told
the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a Tel Aviv
University think tank.