National R&D Council chairman Prof. Yitzhak Ben-Israel has revealed that, two weeks ago, Syria tried and failed to launch a cyber attack on Haifa’s water system. Speaking at the Shabatarbut Beersheva festival, he said that the attack was by the Syrian Electronic Army. Ben-Israel, who established Israel’s cyber defense system, said that that hundreds of attacks were made every minute against Israel’s critical infrastructures, such as the electricity grid, water, Israel Railways, and Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE). He cited a study by Kasperky Lab, which said, “There are 200,000 new viruses every day.
Commenting on Israeli concern that Syrian chemical weapons would end up in terrorists’ hands, Ben-Israel said, “So long as we face Syria, there is equilibrium and everyone knows the balance of forces. Even if they have sophisticated weapons, they think eight times before using them.” He said that Israel was not worried about the missiles, but, “our problem is the transfer of arms to other parties, first to Hezbollah, and second, Syria is disintegrating, and the question is, who will get their hands on these weapons.”
