Israel Launches Cybersecurity Hotline for Suspected Hacking

Israel has launched a cyber hotline, staffed mostly by veterans of military computing units, to enable businesses and private individuals to report suspected hacking and receive real-time solutions. The 119 call-in number to the Computer Emergency Response Center is being billed by Israel and cybersecurity experts as a world first. “Our job is to mitigate the damage as quickly as possible, to learn about the threats and to spread the knowledge where relevant,” CERT Director Lavy Shtokhamer told Reuters at the facility in the southern high-tech hub city of Beersheba. “A cyberattack may not be limited only to property or financial damage. It can also threaten lives.” In some cases, Shtokhamer said, CERT will dispatch teams of experts to affected computer users at a few hours’ notice. At the center, 20 responder terminals face a bank of huge screens. One shows a map of the world, with cyberattacks rendered as meteor-like strikes on Israel and the country of origin of computer servers used by the hackers.