Israeli, cyber officials from normalizing states hold first meeting

The conference took place in Bahrain on December 7 to discuss the establishment of a common platform for so-called cyber defense under the pretext of confronting “increasing threats from Iranian hackers.”

The Israel National Cyber Directorate chief Gabi Portnoy said at the conference that the cooperation could lead to a kind of cyber-style “iron dome” to protect the new allies from alleged “common enemies.”

According to the Jerusalem Post, part of the statement also noted that cyber chiefs from Oman and Kuwait also attended the same conference. UAE cyber chief Dr. Muhammad al-Kuwaiti emphasized the enormous importance of the new cyber alliance.

The Israeli regime and the normalizing countries have been holding various meetings behind closed doors since the so-called Abraham accords were signed in late 2020. However, this is the first time the four countries appeared together in public.

The group meeting came shortly after a speech at a conference in Israel on November 27 by Portnoy in which he discussed a new joint UAE-Israel cyber intelligence sharing collaboration regarding ransomware tools, techniques and attackers as part of a broader 37-country US-led initiative.

There is real fear in Israel of any cyber-attack, preoccupying analysts, political commentators and military leaders in the occupation entity, especially amid the escalation of the Israeli and Iranian mutual threats in light of Israel’s cyber-attacks that aimed to disrupt Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iran, among other countries, has been the target of US and Israeli cyber terrorism for more than a decade.

In 2016, Pegasus spyware, created by the Israeli firm NSO, was released and is still used today. It is used to stealthily break into mobile phones and spy on personal information, including text messages, passwords, locations, and microphone and camera receivers to target its adversaries around the world.

Meanwhile, there have been attempts to remotely sabotage Iran’s strategic infrastructure, including nuclear facilities.

In 2010, the US and Israeli intelligence agencies unleashed a computer worm called Stuxnet on Iranian uranium-enrichment plants in an attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program. The Washington Post reported two years later that the US National Security Agency (NSA), its spy service CIA, and Israel’s military had worked together to launch Stuxnet against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In 2021, an act of sabotage caused a power outage at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. The attack, condemned by Iran as “nuclear terrorism,” was widely attributed to Israel, which is backed by the US.