The Israel Defense Forces Spokesman's website is not usually in the business of breaking stories, so Sunday's report defining the roles of cyberwarfare in the IDF's operational doctrine was unexpected and intriguing.
According to the report on the instructions given to the IDF's operations directorate, "Cyberspace is to be handled similarly to other battlefields on ground, at sea, in the air and in space. The IDF has been engaged in cyberactivity consistently and relentlessly, gathering intelligence and defending its own cyberspace. Additionally, if necessary, cyberspace will be used to execute attacks and intelligence operations.
"There are many diverse operational cyberwarfare goals, including thwarting and disrupting enemy projects that attempt to limit the operational freedom of both the IDF and the State of Israel, as well as incorporating cyberwarfare activity in completing objectives on all fronts and in every kind of conflict," the report adds. "Moreover, it will be used to maintain Israel's quality and advantage over its enemies and prevent their growth and military capabilities, while limiting their operation in this field.
"Additional goals defined by the document published by the operations directorate include creation of operational conditions that will assist in fulfilling IDF capabilities in combat, as well as influence public opinion and raise awareness by advocating in the cyberspace. Overall, cyberspace will be used to improve the operational effectiveness of the IDF, both during war and peacetime," the report says. "This will be done through clandestine activity, while maintaining confidentiality and expertise."
There are no actual operational details here, but the fact that the IDF has, for the first time, officially admitted that it is using cyberspace for offensive purposes is significant. It is unthinkable that such a report could have been issued (both on the Hebrew and English IDF websites) without authorization from the highest military, and perhaps also political, levels.
In previous on-the-record briefings and interviews, officers and officials have been prepared only to acknowledge that work is being done to protect vital computer and communications infrastructure from cyberattack - never to specify attempts to use those measures as weapons.
The timing is especially interesting, coming little more than a week after Flame, the mega-computer worm spying on Iranian and other Middle Eastern computer users, was revealed. And it comes hot on the heels of the interview last week in which Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, said, regarding such cyberattacks, that "anyone who sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat - it's reasonable [to assume] that he will take various steps, including these, to harm it."
A few hours later Ya'alon attempted to play down his remarks, tweeting that "plenty of advanced Western countries, with apparent cyberwarfare capabilities, view Iran and especially its nuclear program as real threat." But the message got through.
This uncharacteristic Israeli openness coincides with a similar development across the Atlantic, where American officials have also revealed for the first time its level of cooperation with Israel in developing and deploying cyberweapons against Iran's nuclear program.
Few of the sources in the lengthy report in The New York Times are named, but for the first time we have reliable information on the way the computer virus known as Stuxnet was developed and used in a joint U.S.-Israeli operation to sabotage Iran's uranium-enrichment project. The cooperation between the U.S. National Security Agency and Israel's Military Intelligence is probably the closest the two nations have ever been in the history of their strategic relations.
The timing of The New York Times report by David E. Sanger could be coincidental - after all, it is an adapted extract from his book "Confront and Conceal: Obama's Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power," which has just been published in the United States.
But the confluence of all these events, the emergence of Flame - which has been lurking in Iranian computers, unconcealed, for a few years now and may have been revealed intentionally to spook the Iranians - Ya'alon's unguarded comments, the IDF's report on its cyberwarfare doctrine, and now the detailed statements from senior U.S. officials to Sanger, can hardly be a coincidence.
It raises a number of key questions:
First, were these revelations part of a coordinated decision by Washington and Jerusalem to momentarily lift the cloak of darkness over their joint cyberefforts? Or are organizations and individuals in either country just trying to grab some of the credit for their own purposes?
Second, if the openness is intentional, who is all this information aimed at? Is the purpose to put more pressure on Iran, where researchers, officers and ordinary citizens are afraid to use their computers and the leaders have to take into account that further attempts to hide nuclear development are bound to fail? Or is this U.S. President Barack Obama's administration trying to convince the public in the United States and Israel and, of course, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government that the intelligence and electronic war on Iran is enough, without military strikes? And are certain elements in Israel's security and political establishment helping the Americans send out this message?
Third, is this just an aberration or are we going to see in the near future an acceptance by governments that cyberwarfare is an accepted extension of diplomacy by other means? And how will Iran and other countries targeted in this way respond?
http://www.haaretz.com
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