Israel’s cyber chief calls for international front against Iranian hackers

[Pelican Press 0]

*******’s cyber chief calls for international front against Iranian hackers

Gaby Portnoy, director general of the ******* National Cyber Directorate (INCD), has called for countries to work together in a “****** front” to combat Iranian state-linked hacking.

He said hackers linked to Iran are targeting Saudi Arabia, Oman, Canada, the UAE, the ***, Germany and Austria among others, including countries that regard Iran as an ally.

“This makes Iran’s aggression a regional and international one, not only an ******** one,” Portnoy told a conference in Tel Aviv.

He said Iranian-linked hacking groups such as

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, linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and Imperial Kitten, linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, were posing threats internationally.

The INCD director said that since ****** attacked ******* on 7 October 2023, cyber attacks against ******* have become more aggressive and are targeting more critical national infrastructure.

The Tel Aviv-based directorate, which has links to the ***’s National Cyber Security Centre, is responsible for *******’s civil cyber defence and developing cyber security policy.

Speaking at the Cyber Week annual conference held at Tel Aviv University, Portnoy said hacking groups were using “psychological warfare” in attacks against ******* and other countries. “Information extracted is distributed to various media channels like Telegram and X (previously

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), and mostly not identified as being Iranians,” he said.

Lines crossed

Iranian hacking groups had crossed “humanitarian red lines”, said Portnoy, citing the cyber ******* against the Ziv medical centre in Safed in Galilee, Northern *******, in December 2023.

A hacking group linked to Iran

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on messaging network Telegraph to have stolen hundreds of thousands of medical records from the ******* Defence Forces.

The Iranian ****** Shadow group was exposed by an Iranian news website as using a front company, involved in providing IT and software by an Iranian news website. The exposure undermined its ability to conduct offensive cyber operations, according to ******** officials.

The war in cyber space since 7 October meant the INCD saw the need to develop advanced cyber defences in the future, Portnoy told the conference.

“We need to step higher and go further in everything we think we need to step up from thinking about securing the cyber space to thinking about securing digital space,” he said.

Gaby Portnoy, director general of the ******* National Cyber Directorate, speaking at the Cyber Week conference in Tel Aviv,

Innovative solutions implemented in the aftermath of the ****** attacks could be ground for future security efforts, he said.

Portnoy said there is a need for national and global efforts to protect cyber space – a concept he referred to as “working together 2.0”. “Imagine a world where cyber attacks are detected and blocked by international-level ecosystems and platforms,” he said.

International collaboration innovation could allow new and emerging technologies to be developed so that they are “secure by design”.

This could include cyber defences capable of receiving automatic updates to mitigate against cyber attacks.

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