Earlier this year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to ease licensing and technology transfer restrictions on dual-use, cyber-related products and services, and on Tuesday Mishel Ben Baruch, director of the defense ministry’s Export and International Cooperation Directorate (SIBAT), told the HLS and Cyber conference in Tel Aviv that his organization is targeting more than 20 countries for enhanced cyber-related trade, DefenseNews reported.
“We identified specific opportunities and needs in more than 20 countries around the world with which SIBAT has close ties,” Ben Baruch said, noting that Israel’s defense ministry is about to coordinate “a special effort to advance the exceptional capabilities of Israel’s cyber defense industries.”
According to Ben Baruch, SIBAT’s survey of potential customers indicates needs which the Israeli defense industry can satisfy, such as developing “cyber vaccines” for weapons and command and control systems; advanced national Computer Emergency Response Team centers; protection of strategic facilities; cyber-related training and trainers; and advanced cyber-crime tools and services.
According to Israel’s National Cyber Directorate (NCD), cyber-related exports in 2015 amounted to about $4 billion, close to $800 million higher than the 2014 figures, and second in scope globally only to the US. NCD is expecting to get very close to, if not exceed the $5 billion mark in 2016.
Such figures, he said, include all cyber-related exports, from commercial off-the-shelf and dual-use capabilities through sensitive military-end use products, services and technologies.
Ben Baruch would not reveal who those 20 plus countries are, but, according to DefenseNews, a defense ministry official whispered to the crowd, “Definitely not Russia.”