A new analysis by NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence provides a comprehensive overview of cyber security structures and recent developments in Israel, a nation at the forefront of digital and cybersecurity innovation for the past decade. The CCDCOE Report “National Cyber Security Organisation: Israel“ describes a trend towards more transparency and ongoing institutional innovation in cyber security.
Israel’s establishment of national cyber security measures and institutions came about relatively early in comparison to other countries and continues to develop in the face of a challenging environment of military and civilian threats. For example Israeli banks, financial institutions, utility companies, and other critical infrastructure are among those most frequently subjected to hostile cyber incidents globally.
“In general, the current implementation of national cyber security objectives and priorities in Israel can be characterized by increasing public transparency, institutional innovation, and governmental investment in both short-term objectives and long-term ones,” highlights Deborah Housen-Couriel, the author of the study. Israel has been among the pioneers of multi-stakeholder cyber security cooperation among government, academia, and private sector entities. Cooperation in the cyber security field is a natural extension of the already-existing paradigm of such national cooperation in other areas.
The NATO CCD COE reports on national organisational models for ensuring cyber security summarise national cyber security strategy objectives and outline the division of cyber security tasks and responsibilities among agencies. In particular, the reports give an overview of the mandate, tasks and competences of the relevant organisations and of coordination between them. The scope of the reports encompasses the mandates of political and strategic cyber security governance; national cyber incident management coordination; military cyber defence; and cyber aspects of crisis prevention and crisis management.
“The series is first and foremost designed to give a comprehensive and clear overview of who does what and when in national cyber security management. Since nations tend to approach these questions divergently, our main aim is to present comparable sets of data in a simple format,” adds Ann Väljataga, Researcher at NATO CCD COE Law and Policy Branch. “Moreover, the organisational structures often reveal a great deal about the essence of a nation´s cyber policy, its priorities, strengths and weaknesses.”
Full report is available at https://ccdcoe.org/multimedia/national-cyber-security-organisation-israel.html