“We saw this careless attacker attempting to poison the water in order to claim human lives. We mitigated that threat far ahead.” said a senior official in Unit 8200 at the annual Cyber Week at Tel Aviv University. As part of the event, which is being held for the 12th year, the best experts and senior figures in Israel’s cyber industry came to lecture, in addition to various conferences and workshops.
Leading the panel this year: Alternate Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Bnei Gantz, Israel National Cyber Directorate Gaby Portnoy, and Deputy Commander of Unit 8200, who spoke openly in public for the first time, revealing that the unit thwarted attempts to take over Israel’s critical water systems. “This is the first official public appearance of an 8200 deputy,” he said during the speech, “even though we’re a major player in the cyber domain, and play a role in Israel’s cyber defense”.
“We are Israel`s national SIGINT and cyber unit. We’re part of the defense intelligence in the IDF, and our mission is intelligence collection on crucial threats to Israel for the IDF”. He added. “another adversary, from this region, attacked in Israel. We initialized a CCO and found out they are also trying to attack power plants in the US. This was the first indication of that attack. It enabled preventing this threat through our tight collaboration with our US partners”.
“When we succeed, we save lives. When we fail, this becomes a major problem for our nation”
About the 8200 Unit, he said: “We are privileged to have a huge amount of talent, as each year we recruit over 1,000 of the brightest girls and boys in Israel as they join the IDF at the age of 18. This also makes our personnel very young. Over 70% are under the age of 23”, explained the deputy.
“Like it or not, we work in quite a tough neighborhood. This leads to ongoing high friction in a dynamic and intense environment. We have new challenges each day. When we succeed, we save lives. When we fail, this becomes a major problem for our nation”.
