US, Israel formalize bilateral cyber partnership

The Department of Treasury and the Israeli Ministry of Finance announced on Thursday a bilateral agreement formalizing and enhancing the cybersecurity partnership between the countries.

The agreement follows Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo’s visit to Israel last fall, when he established a bilateral partnership geared towards protecting the financial sector from cyberattacks. 

On his trip, Adeyemo also launched a bilateral cyber task force with Israel to combat ransomware threats against the financial industry.

In the agreement, both nations pledged to share information related to cyber threats targeting the financial sector, train staff in the cybersecurity field, and conduct cross-border cybersecurity exercises. 

“This partnership has already resulted in the sharing of real time cyber threat data to prevent the spread of ransomware and other cyberattacks from impacting the U.S. financial sector,” Adeyemo said in a statement on Thursday.

The agreement also follows President Biden’s trip to the Middle East last month, during which he pledged to expand and strengthen cyber cooperation with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Experts saw the move as a response to the rising digital threat from Iran — a common adversary of all three countries.

Though not yet at the level of Israel, Iran has proven capable of launching an array of cyberattacks, ranging from website defacement and distributed denial-of-service attacks to ransomware and cyber espionage, experts said.

Israeli officials announced in June that it plans to build a “cyber dome,” a national defense system intended to fight against Iranian digital attacks.

“Iran has become our dominant rival in cyber,” the head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, Gaby Portnoy, said during a conference in Tel Aviv. “We see them, we know how they work, and we are there.”

Israel, however, is also facing criticism in the cyber realm. Israeli spyware firm NSO Group has been accused of selling its spyware to governments who use the tool to spy on dissidents, political rivals, journalists and human right activists.

The backlash, which included being blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, forced the company to restructure, replacing its CEO and laying off about 13 percent of its workforce.