Can Israel use cyberwarfare to foil Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Dan Williams of Reuters reports:
RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (Reuters) – In the late 1990s, a computer specialist from Israel’s Shin Bet internal security service hacked into the mainframe of the Pi Glilot fuel depot north of Tel Aviv.
It was meant to be a routine test of safeguards at the strategic site. But it also tipped off the Israelis to the potential such hi-tech infiltrations offered for real sabotage.
"Once inside the Pi Glilot system, we suddenly realized that, aside from accessing secret data, we could also set off deliberate explosions, just by programing a re-route of the pipelines," said a veteran of the Shin Bet drill.
So began a cyberwarfare project which, a decade on, is seen by independent experts as the likely new vanguard of Israel’s efforts to foil the nuclear ambitions of its arch-foe Iran.
The appeal of cyber attacks was boosted, Israeli sources say, by the limited feasibility of conventional air strikes on the distant and fortified Iranian atomic facilities, and by U.S. reluctance to countenance another open war in the Middle East.
"We came to the conclusion that, for our purposes, a key Iranian vulnerability is in its on-line information," said one recently retired Israeli security cabinet member, using a generic term for digital networks. "We have acted accordingly."
Full story here.
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