American, ’Israeli’ Intelligence Cooperate against Possible Cyber-Attacks

Local Editor

The head of the US National Security Agency [NSA], Admiral Michael Rogers, was secretly in the "Israeli"-occupied territories last week for a working visit that dealt with forging closer cooperation in the cyber field with the "Israeli" Forces' Intelligence Corps Unit 8200, especially facing possible cyber-attacks by Iran and Hizbullah, according to a senior "Israeli" official reporting to Haaretz.

Relatively, the NSA is considered the largest agency of the American intelligence community and deals with signal intelligence through monitoring, interception and analysis of communications such as telephone conversations, emails, communications between computers and other sources.

The agency is also responsible for protecting the computer and communications networks of the US government from cyber-attacks by hostile forces. It also carries out its own cyber-attacks on countries or individuals that are considered intelligence or operational targets.

In this regard, a senior Zionist official noted that Rogers came to the "Israeli" entity as a guest of the commander of Unit 8200, but also met with senior officials from other "Israeli" intelligence agencies.

However, he did not meet with the occupation Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot or the director of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi in the course of his visit.

The same source noted that one of the subjects discussed in the occupied Palestine was cooperation in the field of cyber defense, particularly in the face of "attacks from Iran and Hizbullah."

In a similar context, a book by New York Times chief Washington correspondent David Sanger claimed that the NSA and Unit 8200 cooperated on an offensive cyber operation against the Iranian nuclear program that was given the code name Olympic Games. As part of the operation, carried out between 2008 and 2011, the two agencies created the computer worm dubbed Stuxnet and planted it in the communications networks of Iran's uranium enrichment facilities.

Cooperation between the NSA and Unit 8200 is deep, intimate and has been ongoing for decades in which the NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden disclosed the extent of this cooperation.

Source: Haaretz, Edited by website team