Army to establish unified cyber corps
The IDF decision aims to streamline offensive and defensive efforts and points to the rising potency of the threat
Cadets in the IDF Cyber Defense Unit course on June 10, 2013 (IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
In a historic move indicative of
the dangers and potency of the digital medium as a weapon, the
commander of the Israeli army decided Monday to establish a new IDF
corps responsible for all cyber activity.
Lt.
Gen. Gadi Eisenkot called the establishment of the new corps, to be
headed by a two-star general and on par with the Navy and the Air Force,
a matter of supreme importance that is becoming “more significant with
each passing day.”
Cyber security is today dispersed throughout
the army. The Military Intelligence Directorate handles offensive
capacities while the C4I branch deals with protection. The new corps,
subject to the approval of the defense minister and to be operational
within two years, would bring the army’s cyber know-how under a single
roof.
Nationally, the Shin Bet security service,
Mossad, IDF and National Cyber Bureau in the Prime Minister’s Office
operate without a unified and hierarchical cyber framework. This
incoherence, coupled with Iran’s investments in the field and the fact
that the threat can be launched by anyone, from anywhere, without any
clear stockpiling of weapons in advance, has led some to voice concern.
“Massive cyber attacks, like the Egyptian
onslaught on Yom Kippur,” are feasible, the commander of the IDF Cyber
Defense Unit told The Times of Israel earlier this year.
IDF
Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot at a ceremony held in his honor in
Jerusalem, on February 16, 2015. (photo credit: Miriam Alster/Flash90)
“We don’t need to be naive,” the unit
commander said. “It’s simple” – the axis of Islamist resistance is
constantly probing for chinks in the IDF’s armor; hence the rise of the
rocket and missile threat. As that threat has been partially thwarted,
he said, the tunnel threat, a dominant feature of the Gaza war, was
pushed to the fore.
“In the coming wars,” he said, “especially
those in the north, I imagine that the cyber capacity will be far more
significant than in the past wars.
Col. (ret) Gadi Siboni, the director of the
Cyber Security Program at the Institute for National Security Studies
think tank in Tel Aviv, wrote shortly after last summer’s war in Gaza
that Iran’s progress in developing cyber weapons, as seen by the
unprecedented offensives launched during the 50-day war, “is evidence of
the beginning of a process in which cyber war replaces the classic
terror as a central tool in Iran’s doctrine of asymmetric warfare.”
Cyber attacks would enable Israel’s enemies to
strike the home front and are often easily deniable — two elements that
are central to the Iranian approach to asymmetric warfare against
Israel, Siboni wrote.
Iran, he added, is quickly and adroitly “bridging the gap” in cyber technology between itself and Israel.
Herzi Halevi, during his time as commander of the IDF’s Galilee division. (photo credit: Mitch Ginsburg/Times of Israel)
Promptly upon taking command of the IDF in
February, Eisenkot tasked Maj. Gen. Herzi Halevy, the commander of
military intelligence, with heading a team that would examine ways to
“improve the operational efficacy” of the army’s cyber teams.
In a nod to the infighting that will likely
ensue, over both the prestige and funds of a cyber corps, the IDF
Spokesperson’s statement said that the command would be set up initially
“in parallel” in both the Military Intelligence Directorate and the C4I
Corps before a final decision is made about from where the new corps
should spring forth.
Deputy Chief of the IDF General Staff Yair
Golan and Maj. Gen. Nimrod Shefer will head the planning and
implementation committee.
“The establishment of the corps will allow the
IDF to operate in a better way,” Eisenkot said, “and to give expression
to the technological and human capital advantage that already exists
today in the State of Israel.”
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