{"id":13860,"date":"2012-01-09T21:32:02","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T17:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=13860"},"modified":"2012-01-09T21:36:33","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T17:36:33","slug":"israel-minister-cyber-attacks-are-an-act-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/technology-in-the-middle-east\/israel-minister-cyber-attacks-are-an-act-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Minister: Cyber Attacks are “An Act of War”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Leave it to Danny Ayalon, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, to plumb unintentionally the twisted hypocrisy of Israeli foreign and military policy. \u00a0In the aftermath of the\u00a0hacking attack<\/a>\u00a0on an Israeli sports website, which exposed the credit card information on 14,000 accounts (apparently not the 400,000 that the hacker originally claimed), Ayalon announced that\u00a0any cyberattack on Israel would be met with maximum force<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Haaretz quotes him<\/a>\u00a0as saying:<\/p>\n

Such cyber-attacks are \u201ca breach of sovereignty comparable to a terrorist operation, and must be treated as such\u201d, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said during a speech at a community center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael has active capabilities for striking at those who are trying to harm it, and no agency or hacker will be immune from retaliatory action,\u201d he said<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Such lunacy is music to the ears of bloggers. \u00a0It\u2019s our meat.<\/p>\n

First, Ayalon doesn\u2019t make Israeli security policy. \u00a0He barely even makes foreign policy since most of the world\u2019s leaders refuse to meet with his boss, the former-Moldovan, former-Kahane Chai muscle. \u00a0So his death threats against script kiddies for minor security hacks are typical ultranationalist braggadocio.<\/p>\n

Second, he appears not to have considered the consequences for Israeli cyber warfare efforts against Iran. \u00a0If hacking a commercial site is\u00a0casus belli<\/em>\u00a0for a nation going to war against a hacker, then all the more so when a\u00a0nation<\/em>\u00a0creates a computer worm like\u00a0Stuxnet<\/a>\u00a0which sabotages another nation\u2019s nuclear processes. \u00a0Is that really what Ayalon wants? \u00a0To provide Iran with a justification for attacking Israel for Stuxnet? \u00a0Better yet, since the U.S. also likely played a role in Stuxnet, should we give Iran cause to attack\u00a0us<\/em>\u00a0too?<\/p>\n

Oh, I forgot Iran damn well better not even think it can attack us for Stuxnet, but we damn well have the right to do the same against them and fear no consequences. \u00a0World of Bullycraft 2.0.<\/p>\n

Ayalon also lied in this mischaracterization of U.S. cyberpolicy regarding this threat:<\/p>\n

Ayalon also applauded the United States for declaring that \u201call attacks in their cyberspace will be considered as a declaration of war and they will react as if it had been a missile attack.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We never declared any policy remotely close to what Ayalon claimed. \u00a0But why let facts get in the way when you\u2019re fighting a holy jihad against Israel\u2019s delegitimization, right? \u00a0The\u00a0Pentagon\u00a0has<\/em>\u00a0suggested policy<\/a>which would allow the U.S. to go to war against a \u201cforeign nation\u201d that engaged in a cyberwarfare attack:<\/p>\n

\u2026A computer attack from a\u00a0foreign nation\u00a0<\/em>can be<\/em>\u00a0considered an act of war that\u00a0may<\/em>\u00a0result in a military response.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It doesn\u2019t say we\u00a0will<\/em>\u00a0go to war, and if we were to, it suggests we would only go to war against a\u00a0nation<\/em>\u00a0which violated our cybersovereignty (if there can even be such a concept). \u00a0I see nothing saying the Pentagon is willing to fight a war against Chinese cyberhackers or a script kiddie stealing credit card data from a commercial website. \u00a0If that were the case, the world would rather quickly remind us of the old R. Crumb cartoon of the shell-shocked man with a TV trying to find an electric socket in a landscape devastated by nuclear war. \u00a0Not to mention that these suggested rules are quite controversial because they open us up to precisely the type of attack that may be justified by our own cyber attack on nations like Iran.<\/p>\n

[See also:\u00a0Analysis:\u00a0Saudi Hackers Target Israeli Credit Cards<\/a>]<\/p>\n

This article appears with the kind permission of Tikun Olam<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RICHARD SILVERSTEIN: Ayalon mischaracterized U.S. cyberpolicy, but then why let facts get in the way when you\u2019re fighting a jihad against Israel\u2019s delegitimization, right? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":468,"featured_media":13861,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,154,83,171,60,9],"tags":[276,10688,2622,1043,18306,18311,1389,18302],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13860"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}