Israel, Abraham Accords partners plan ‘Cyber Iron Dome’

Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco held a meeting in Bahrain on Dec. 7 to discuss cooperating on a common cyber-defense system, according to reports from the KAN Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation. 

Israel National Cyber Directorate director-general Gaby Portnoy called it a historic meeting and “a statement by the parties regarding cooperation in the cyber field against common enemies.” 

Portnoy referred to the projected joint project as a “Cyber Iron Dome,” a reference to Israel’s Iron Dome mobile air defense system, developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries. 

The multinational meeting was the first time that senior officials from these countries all appeared together publicly. 

In recent years, Iran and Israel reportedly have engaged in increasingly sophisticated cyber warfare against each other. 

During the Bahrain meeting, the country representatives discussed ongoing threats from Iranian hackers. In July, hackers from the Islamic Republic of Iran leaked the information of more than 300,000 Israelis, which they obtained through targeted attacks on travel websites.

In November, Israel hosted a cyber security conference to showcase Israeli-developed security and cyber-security products from 65 different companies. At that conference, Portnoy announced a collaboration between Israel and the UAE involving cyber-intelligence sharing. 

Earlier this month, Israel and the United States hosted a joint cyber security exercise simulating an Iranian attack. This came at the same time that Human Rights Watch announced that Iranian-affiliated hackers are targeting activists, journalists, researchers, academics, diplomats and politicians.

According to Human Rights Watch, a hacker group known as APT42 conducted a cyber attack that compromised emails and other sensitive data of a women’s rights advocate and a consultant from Lebanon-based Refugees International. 

The news site Iran International reported that the same group targeted medical research companies in the U.S. and Israel in late 2020.