Israel will establish a national cyber situation room as part of a national cybernetic defense concept.
National Cyber Bureau head Dr. Evyatar Mataniah also announced Wednesday at Tel Aviv University’s Second Annual International Cyber Conference that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the budget and work plan for the bureau that was established at the beginning of the year.
The announcement came on the heels of a speech by Defense Minister Ehud Barak in which he acknowledged for the first time that Israel has launched offensive cyberspace operations. He said Israel has been working on both cyber defense and offense, but stressed that defense is more important.
“Our goal with cyber defense, which is the more important and difficult component, is to prevent damage,” Barak said, according to Haaretz. “It is more than we can benefit from an offensive action, even though both aspects exist.”
It is suspected that Israel released the Flame virus that was discovered attacking computers in Iran and the West Bank, among other places, last month. The Flame virus reportedly shares some characteristics with the Stuxnet virus that attacked Iran’s nuclear centrifuges and which Israel was accused of creating with U.S. cooperation.
