Tag Archive for: israeli

Inside the cyber ‘war room’ where Israeli AI experts work to locate Hamas hostages

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“I have not slept for almost two weeks now, but every time I start falling asleep I have pictures of the hostages on my desk that get me up and running again,” says Omri Marcus, who is heading one half of the Gitam BBDO “war room” in Tel Aviv.

This time two weeks ago, Gitam BBDO was not a “war room” at all. It was a leading creative agency based in the Israeli capital.

The day after Hamas launched its attack on the country, it restyled itself into what it calls a war room, made up of volunteers who have abandoned their day jobs to turn their efforts towards trying to rescue the 203 hostages the militant group captured and are holding across the border in Gaza.

The Gazan enclave is under Israeli siege with food, fuel and water access blocked off. The territory, often likened to an “open air prison” has been under Israeli bombardment since Hamas, the militant group which govern it, launched the attack on Israel in which the hostages were taken and civilians deliberately targeted to be killed.

The war room in Tel Aviv has two floors – one utilises the talents of creatives to build support for the hostages around the world, while the other is more practical. It uses face recognition tools and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to verify whether hostages are dead or alive, and pinpoint their last recorded location within Gaza.

(Photo: Gitam BBDO group)

Refael Franco took i through the process of tracking the hostages. The group collects data on social media usage within Gaza, with graphs showing the number of texts sent and app usage on the tracked phones – even down to the number of times particular emojis were sent.

Data collected from social media usage and photos and videos from the Gaza strip are then uploaded to a software called tag box, which links it to hostages using images of them provided by their families and the military.

Any matches detected are shared with the IDF’s newest unit – the task force for finding missing and displaced people.

Franco, who founded Code Blue, a crisis management company based in Israel and Germany and is the former head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, showed i how one hostage had been detected from a TikTok uploaded from Gaza…

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2 Israeli cybersecurity experts are relatively unconcerned about hackers’ tactics

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Hi there, it’s tech reporter Alexandra Sternlicht.

This morning I interviewed two cybersecurity executives in Israel: Gil Messing, chief of staff at Check Point Software Technologies, and Avi Shua, chief innovation officer and cofounder of Orca Security. Both executives were sheltering in place during our calls. While they face the threats of bombs, rockets, and terrorism to their homes, families, and communities, they are also combating cyber warfare from their shelters for their respective jobs. But when it comes to hacking and digital warfare, they are relatively unconcerned.

“Cyberattacks are increasing by the day and getting more serious, but it’s still in the lower range of creating damage,” Messing said. “If you compare them to the physical attacks, it’s very, very marginal.”

Still, Israelis of all ages have been receiving threatening text and WhatsApp messages from Yemen and Afghanistan phone numbers. On the enterprise side, there have been over 100 attacks to public services, websites, and media outlets conducted by about 40 hacking outfits. These attacks last anywhere from minutes to hours, Messing said.

Schools have moved to online learning with mandatory shelter-in-place orders, and Hamas is infiltrating classroom Zoom lessons with hostage footage, according to Orca’s Shua. “The most important thing—and this is something that I know most people do—is to make sure that kids have their access limited, because they can be really affected by these kinds of messages,” Shua said.

In some case, Israelis’ smart home technologies have also fallen prey to Hamas and its supporters. Fewer than 100 Israelis have experienced attackers controlling their curtains, flicking lights and appliances, per Check Point. “The entire agenda here is to freak people out with invasive tactics,” Messing said.

Israel has been long-regarded as a global cybersecurity hub. This is in large part due to its military prowess; members of the Israeli Defense Force’s 8200 cyber warfare unit have often gone on to serve in top roles at cybersecurity companies or found their own. These include $15 billion (market cap) publicly traded Check Point and $1.8 billion Orca (valuation). Now…

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Researchers Identify Iranian Cyberattack on 32 Israeli Firms – Israel News

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Israeli protesters block highways, train stations as Netanyahu moves ahead with judicial overhaul

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JERUSALEM — Tens of thousands of protesters on Tuesday blocked highways and train stations and massed in central Tel Aviv during a day of countrywide demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul plan.

The protests, now in their seventh month, have taken on a sense of urgency in recent days as Netanyahu and his allies in parliament march ahead with the program. The first bill in the package – a measure that seeks to limit the Supreme Court’s oversight powers – could become law as soon as next week.

The unrest also cast a shadow over a visit to the White House by Israel’s figurehead president, Isaac Herzog, who was invited to Washington to celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary.

Herzog, a political centrist, has been involved in behind-the-scenes efforts to broker a compromise on the judicial overhaul, which has strained relations between Netanyahu and President Joe Biden.

In a meeting with Biden in the Oval Office, Herzog acknowledged that Israel was “going through a heated debate as a society.” But he said that debate shows that Israeli society is “strong and resilient.” He added that the country should seek an “amicable consensus.”

Biden, who has criticized the overhaul plan, said that the U.S. commitment to Israel was strong and the bond between the two countries was “unbreakable.”

Netanyahu and his allies say the overhaul is needed to rein in the powers of an unelected judiciary – particularly the Supreme Court – that they believe is overly interventionist in government decisions.

Their opponents, representing a wide cross section of Israeli society, say the plan is a power grab by Netanyahu and his ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox allies that will destroy the country’s fragile system of checks and balances. They also say the prime minister, who is on trial for corruption charges, and his allies are motivated by various grievances against the justice system.

Late Tuesday, protesters thronged outside the U.S. diplomatic offices, packed the central square of Tel Aviv and crippled the city’s main highway. Police on horseback galloped among the crowds, trying to clear them away.

Earlier, protesters gathered…

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