Cooperation Between Israel and Its Neighbors Can Defeat Shared Cyber Threats 

Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last week launched a new cyber threat intelligence sharing platform, dubbed Crystal Ball, to help combat ransomware and other cyberattacks. The joint effort demonstrates the value of closer collaboration between Israel and its neighbors for global cybersecurity. 

Israel and the UAE began developing the Crystal Ball platform months ago as part of a working group of the multilateral Counter Ransomware Initiative, Michael Herzog, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, explained in May. The partners had completed the initial testing phase, he continued, and would soon be rolling it out to other Abraham Accords signatories and then the rest of the 37 members of the initiative. Representatives from Germany, Singapore, and the United States attended the launch alongside the annual Cyber Week conference in Tel Aviv.  

The Crystal Ball platform leverages the technology of Microsoft, Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, and Abu Dhabi-based cybersecurity firm CPX as well as partnerships with Amazon Web Services and other technology and cybersecurity firms. The platform is intended to facilitate “continuous, convenient, and high-quality cooperation,” Microsoft Israel CEO Alon Haimovich said. It will provide technical indicators of compromise as well as insights into threat actors.  

Alongside the announcement, the UAE’s cyber chief, Muhammad al-Kuwaiti, revealed that Israel helped fend off a major distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. “Thank God for the Abraham Accords,” he said, implying the attack might have succeeded without the historic agreement. The countries “are targeted by the same actors, state actors, nonstate actors, cyber criminals,” Herzog said in May alongside counterparts from Bahrain and the UAE. Iran targets Israel on a daily basis, he noted, while Israel’s Arab neighbors have been the victims of some of Iran’s most destructive cyberattacks.  

Anticipating these kinds of cybersecurity dividends, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this year the expansion of the Abraham Accords to address cybersecurity issues. Lawmakers have weighed in supporting this effort. At the end of May, for example, Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Joni Ernst (R-IA) introduced legislation to strengthen U.S. cybersecurity partnerships with Abraham Accords countries. The legislation would provide greater authority to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to share information, provide technical assistance, and conduct joint training and exercises with Israel, Morocco, the UAE, and Bahrain collectively and bilaterally. 

While Crystal Ball is a concrete result of the Abraham Accords and the Counter Ransomware Initiative, more can be done to strengthen cyber collaboration among signatories and between Israel and the United States. Technical and legal training are core components of America’s cyber capacity-building programs with partners and allies. Tabletop and live-fire exercises also strengthen cyber resilience by identifying malicious activity, patching technical vulnerabilities, and practicing response and recovery efforts to mitigate the impact of adversarial attacks. This type of closer collaboration between Israel and its partners is key to defeating the adversaries that threaten them in cyberspace.  

Annie Fixler is the director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and an FDD research fellow. Cole Knie is a CCTI intern. For more analysis from the authors and CCTI and FDD’s Israel Program, please subscribe HERE. Follow Annie on Twitter @afixler. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.