IDF Computer Chief: 3 Billion Cyber Attacks Against Israel Since Beginning of War

The Israel Defense Forces’ cloud computing network has faced over three billion cyber attacks since the war broke out between Israel and Hamas on October 7, the officer commanding the military’s computer unit said the previous week, but all of the attacks were intercepted and did not cause damage.

The revelation was made by Col. Racheli Dembinsky, commander of the IDF’s Center of Computing and Information Systems (Mamram), at the “IT for IDF” conference in Rishon Lezion on Wednesday, July 10.

Dembinsky said the targets of the attacks included operational cloud computing used by many systems serving troops on the ground during combat to share information and locations of forces. While Dembinsky did not say what kinds of attacks were perpetrated or how great a danger they posed, she stressed that all were blocked and no systems were at any point compromised.

Mamram, the IDF’s central computing system unit, handles the infrastructure and defense of the military’s remote servers. It has also been reported that cyberattacks were carried out against Israel on October 7. Dembinsky confirmed this.

Speaking of her experience on that day, Dembinsky said, “I received a phone call that morning and thought there was a malfunction in the alert system. I quickly understood there wasn’t a malfunction, but a broader attack. Also, we immediately understood this wasn’t fake... We began transitioning to emergency mode. We were required to focus on the continuous functioning of people and systems. The industry assisted us, and it, along with the reservists we recruited, acted as a force multiplier for us.” (TOI / VFI News)