The detonations of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies within the past couple of days shed light on a technological and operational challenge that is relevant not just to terrorist organizations: how to adopt technological devices in a military context without becoming exposed to security breaches.
According to "The New York Times", the Hungarian company BAC that produced Hezbollah’s pagers was a straw company set up by Israel in May 2022. Thus while the terrorist organization believed that it was buying innocuous products of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo, which sells pagers on the market, it was in fact receiving bombs carrying 28-56 grams of powerful explosive.
Hezbollah may be a terrorist organization, but the challenge of protecting oneself against tampering and infiltration by means of imported technological devices applies to most countries, including Israel. Many devices in Israel are made in China, and communicate with Chinese servers.
"Israel has no independence in the production of components," says Dr. Liran Antebi, a guest lecturer at the Yuval Ne'eman Workshop for Science Technology and Security at Tel Aviv University. "Israel is dependent on components that come from a variety of places, and this is one of the factors that affect its conduct of international relations." Antebi highlights the challenges of cybersecurity, as illustrated by the Stuxnet computer worm that infected the control system of Iran’s nuclear installation in Natanz in 2010, an attack attributed to Israel. "Stuxnet happened because of contaminated components that hurt the Iranians. There’s awareness of the dangers of computer components, although not enough," she says. "When it comes to attempts to plant explosives or a faulty component that will cause a general breakdown, I presume that the relevant people check that technologies brought here have undergone extensive tests. But certainly after October 7, we can’t be complacent."
Besides the need of the security apparatus to ensure that events reminiscent of Hezbollah’s embarrassment won’t happen here in Israel, there are also products that can be used for monitoring. Chinese camera drones produced by DJI, for example, communicate with Chinese servers. Many more products, from China and elsewhere, may be similarly problematic.
"The fear is not a conspiracy theory. The surprise could come from any device we bring home," says Dr. Harel Menashri, one of the founders of the Israel Security Agency’s (Shin Bet) cyber unit, who is now head of cyber at the Holon Institute of Technology, a lecturer in the Information Science Department at Bar Ilan University, and a research fellow at the Institute for Counter Terrorism at Reichman University. "When we bring all kinds of IoT products home, someone could exploit that, whether for intelligence or criminal purposes."
Do we know how many devices are monitored by foreign agencies? "The Chinese have high monitoring capabilities," says Dr. Menashri. "Every electric scooter produced by a Chinese company is monitored, and they say so. The Chinese are supposed to know where a scooter is at any time. I know of no Chinese technology that doesn’t broadcast to them. As soon as you switch on a DJI drone, it broadcasts, as does every Chinese telephone."
Chinese domination of the world drone market is almost complete. In the US, 90% of the amateur drones bought are Chinese. "The Chinese are the only ones who manage to meet the pace of production of drones and FPV drones that the world demands. Those who use them are aware that data are liable to reach other places. The same problems exist with applications like TikTok," Menashri says.
If Israeli industry, particularly Israeli defense industry, can’t produce everything, what is the right balance of risks? "An important question is where components are imported from," says Menashri. "I could decide that I trust the Americans and don’t care how they monitor me, because they don’t endanger me to any real extent. Every weapons system the Americans sell is meant to be monitored to some degree or another, including combat aircraft."
Dr. Antebi says that she is more concerned about cyber attacks that could harm Israel, more than about kinetic threats such as we have seen in the case of Hezbollah, because a successful cyber attack could knock out strategic infrastructures such as the power grid. "Besides that, the scenario of an attack using an FPV drone is no less disturbing, because it’s much simpler for our enemies, and we aren’t sufficiently protected," she concludes.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 19, 2024.
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