The periodical Cyberspace, Intelligence, and Security first issue is a direct continuation of Military and Strategic Affairs. The new journal is aimed at writers and readers interested or working in the many fields of cyberspace, including academia, policymaking and government, the army, intelligence agencies, economics, law, and, of course, those who are developing and providing solutions to cyberspace problems, as well as the parties in industry who represent the customers of those solutions. The new journal deals with a range of...
The advent of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) will have profound effects on car owner- ship, transportation, and security. It is already possible to hack into individual cars through their entertainment and navigation systems. The connecting of AVs to networks will make it possible to hack them on a large scale. Policymakers should act now to implement both technical and legal security mechanisms. Potential solu- tions include the establishment of a system of certificates, an effort to establish an air gap between different computer...
The cybersecurity challenge cuts across fields, sectors, and approaches. This essay presents the fundamentals of the problem, embraces a risk-based approach that perceives the state as society’s risk manager, and overviews the development of regulatory processes in modern societies. The essay then compares how the United States, European Union, and Israel have chosen to confront the cybersecurity challenge and stresses the importance and difficulties of imposing cybersecurity regulation on the civil sector. Finally, the essay...
The essays in Strategic Survey for Israel 2016-2017, the latest volume in the series published annually by the Institute for National Security Studies, were written and compiled during a period of upheaval and instability in Israel’s strategic environment. In many respects, this upheaval continues the trends that have marked the Middle East and much of the international arena in previous years, especially since the so-called “Arab Spring” swept through the region. Accordingly, many of the events that occurred in the region during the...
This article surveys the large number of theaters and the differences between the enemies in Israel’s first circle of conflict. The analysis highlights the uniqueness of the various theaters in which the IDF operates, and stresses that the diversity of the challenges in the respective spheres requires rethinking the adapted response patterns. A concept that gives preference to response formulation and force buildup tailored to the specific needs of the various theaters (e.g., the West Bank; borders with the countries having a peace...
Cyberspace is becoming the primary and most effective tool for commercial espionage and the theft of information and intellectual property. It allows the attacker a technological shortcut, giving him the competitive edge over the market in general and the defender in particular. This essay examines whether the need to confront cyberspace threats in general and, more specifically, organizational information security affects the considerations of decision makers in commercial enterprises. Decisions relating to the feasibility of...
At least three consecutive waves of complex online attacks were directed at Domain Name System (DNS) servers operated by Dyn, a US internet infrastructure provider. The attack on October 21, 2016 consisted of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, exploited vast numbers of connected devices, and blocked access to thousands of websites, including Netflix, Amazon, Twitter, Airbnb, the New York Times, PayPal, and more. Yet the weakness shown in this attack is not the burden of the private sector alone. The use of armies of...
The widespread popular belief, as well as the operating assumption of US law enforcement agencies, was that it was Russian hackers who broke into the computer network serving the Democratic National Convention, as part of a cyberattack aimed at Democratic Party institutions. Apparently as a result of tensions between Russia and the US, a cyberwar is already underway that goes beyond the ongoing activities of intelligence gathering and espionage. Causing damage to the democratic process, perhaps by means of tendentious exposure of...
April 2016 marked the official beginning of the National Cyber Defense Authority. The guiding rationale that informed the establishment of the Authority is that close cooperation among all parts of the civil sector is required for the defense of cyberspace, and hence the need to establish a civilian authority to focus solely on cyber security and, in the future, assume some of the work traditionally performed by the Israel Security Agency to defend critical national infrastructures. In addition, the division of responsibility and...
Information sharing in cyberspace includes the sharing of attack methods, tools and means of attack, targets of an attack, weaknesses discovered, and ways of dealing with threats. Information sharing constitutes a strategic defensive principle. It is aimed at enhancing general strength in cyberspace. Various and diverse information-sharing initiatives are currently operating in Israel and throughout the world, but they are not as effective as they could be. This article addresses a number of economic and political challenges facing...
Since the beginning of time, the collection of human intelligence (HUMINT) has been the cornerstone of gaining an advantage over one’s enemies. Over the past fifty years, the United States, under three particular administrations, has tried to end the process of HUMINT collection. HUMINT has always been associated with tradecraft and the necessity to work with unsavory characters. The information gleaned from these characters, however, has proven both vital and important in terms of defending against a threat as well as pursuing an...
Critical decisions regarding the future of the internet, or internets, are upon us. In his seminal book published in 2008, entitled The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It, Professor Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard Law School laid out the core dilemma behind these decisions. On the one hand, the ubiquity of the world wide web, the richness of its resources, and the ease of access and transmission of information it provides for 2.7 billion people – which Zittrain calls the “generative internet” – have been...
