World War III will be a “cyber war and the world is not prepared for it,” warned Israel’s State Comptroller Matanyahu Engelman during Tel Aviv University’s annual Cyber Week.
In a comprehensive overview, Engelman outlined the cyber situation in the world and in Israel:
“We are vulnerable and defenseless. We all live in a Big Brother global plan. We found many deficiencies and leaks.”
Israel is well aware of the cyber front, and yet there are numerous gaps that are often not talked about. Continued Engelman:
“I have to make a pessimistic statement to you: We are at the mercy of this new age. The citizens of the world are defenseless. Our data is visible to too many people. Our money is at risk, our children are at risk, our health is at risk, our safety is at risk. A third world war will be a cyber war that the world is not prepared for.”
Over the past year, we have repeatedly reported on Israel’s use of cyberattacks to thwart Iran’s nuclear program. But Iranian cyberattacks are not uncommon in Israel either. There is a cyber war going on behind the scenes that most people are unaware of. The purpose of a cyber department established by Engelman is to examine Israel’s resilience and preparedness in dealing with cyberattacks.
According to him, over the past year the department has conducted a series of resistance and penetration tests in a number of Israeli industrial organizations, including the Center for Traffic Management in Jerusalem, hospitals across the country and the tax administration’s systems. Engelman explained:
“We found significant deficiencies in our audits, including the fact that very few penetration tests are being conducted by public bodies. Some even ran tests just during our review.
“We are committed to continuing to investigate this important issue for the benefit of the citizens of Israel and the world.”
Engelman said the tests are also aimed at protecting privacy. In addition, the ability to detect cyberattacks early, the recovery capacities in the event of a disaster and, last but not least, damage scenarios to critical state infrastructures are examined. Engelman referred to the Central Electoral Commission in Israel with regards to the forthcoming elections. It had to be noted that the computer system from 2008 was only used during election periods when so-called cyber audits have been carried out.
“It was not possible to carry out comprehensive and complex tests that include all new aspects of today’s cyber defense.”
In other words, Israeli elections could be open to disruption and manipulation.
Precisely because Israel is more advanced than most other nations in terms of IT, there should be no open flanks, or second lines of defense, not even in the virtual world.
Cyber space is always compromised because of the interests of private companies. They will always be required by the states they operate in to serve that state’s interest. Look at the fines various states have levied against the likes of Google and Facebook. Enforcement agencies want phone, email and other digital records.
This gets worse when a state has the controlling interest such as North Korea, China or Russia. There are no restraints of morality or law in how these states operate. They will exploit globalism, one big happy family of nations, as an idealistic weakness.
The world is limited in the operating systems it uses. Microsoft and Apple seem to be the main players. The core system codes are probably not needed by hackers to compromise most systems. They no doubt have well known inherent weaknesses that can be easily exploited.
Mankind is perhaps not quite as clever as he likes to think he is. Praise G_D His codes, morality and laws are more robust.
Thank you Arthur for sharing these points!