2 Israeli cybersecurity experts are relatively unconcerned about hackers’ tactics

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 Israeli cybersecurity leaders are banding together to fight the digital front of its war against Hamas, per Reuters.  

The hacks are concerning, but Shua agreed with Messing that cybercrime is far from the top issue for Israelis right now. “The most concerning issue is not cyber warfare,” Shua said. “We are grieving thousands of people. Every family knows a few people that lost their lives or have been abducted.” 

If anything, the silver lining is that these cybersecurity experts seem unmoved by the novelty or power of these hacks. “You’ve seen this in other countries—Russia, Ukraine, China, Taiwan, and other places around the world,” said Messing as his son entered the Zoom to hug him. “I can’t say it’s something no one has ever seen before.”

Alexandra Sternlicht

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Today’s edition was curated by David Meyer.

NEWSWORTHY

Microsoft closes Activision deal. Microsoft has officially acquired Activision-Blizzard for $69 billion. The deal follows approval from the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority, which in turn followed the companies' promise to sell important cloud gaming rights to rival game-maker Ubisoft, thus assuaging concerns about the merger’s effect on that nascent market. Microsoft president Brad Smith, according to Reuters: “We have now crossed the final regulatory hurdle to close this acquisition, which we believe will benefit players and the gaming industry worldwide.”

EU X probe. Elon Musk’s X is the first-ever subject of an investigation into potential violations of the EU’s new Digital Services Act, which requires big online platforms to fight disinformation. As Politico reports, the European Commission began the process yesterday by sending X a formal request for information about how it has been tackling graphic illegal content and disinformation relating to Hamas’s attack on Israel. The process could end with X having to pay a fine of up to 6% of global revenue. Meta says it is cracking down on posts that praise Hamas, to comply with the same rules.

AGI all the way. OpenAI has revised its “core values” to make the development of artificial general intelligence its exclusive focus. Semafor reports the change was quietly made to OpenAI’s website in recent weeks. Meanwhile, The Information reports on comments by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman that indicate the company is now generating revenue that would amount to $1.3 billion on an annualized basis.

ON OUR FEED

“NIST isn’t following procedures designed to stop NSA from weakening PQC.”

—Cryptography expert Daniel Bernstein, who claims the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology is allowing the National Security Agency to undermine the security promised by “post-quantum cryptography,” the technology that everyone will need once/if hackers become armed with quantum computers that they can use to bypass today’s security methods.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Inside the meeting where Caroline Ellison came clean to Alameda staff, per a secret recording from an employee who started 3 days earlier, by Ben Weiss

Google at 25 faces antitrust threats on both sides of the Atlantic that could break up its business, by Bloomberg

Qualcomm to slash 1,260 jobs in California amid tumbling revenue and a slumping phone market in China, by Bloomberg

Meta killed a metaverse yoga app upon learning its developer also talked with Apple, a lawsuit alleges: ‘It was hell working on it’, by Bloomberg

Software giant Atlassian is bucking the return-to-office trend—and has new ways of evaluating its real estate, by Steve Mollman

Freakonomics author: ‘Objections to data science in K-12 education make no sense’, by Steven Levitt

BEFORE YOU GO

AI resurrection. Polish actor Miłogost Reczek provided the voice (in that language) for the doctor Viktor Vektor in the smash-hit Polish game Cyberpunk 2077. But he died before the production of its new expansion, Phantom Liberty, which still features the character.

So production house CD Projekt used AI to recreate Reczek’s voice, tweaking lines recorded by another actor. CD Projekt localization director Mikołaj Szwed: “This way we could keep his performance in the game and pay tribute to his wonderful performance as Viktor Vektor.” And yes, the studio asked Reczek’s family for their permission first.