The Department of Treasury and the Israeli Ministry of Finance announced on Thursday a bilateral agreement formalizing and enhancing the cybersecurity partnership between the countries.
The agreement follows Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo’s visit to Israel last fall, when he established a bilateral partnership geared towards protecting the financial sector from cyberattacks.
On his trip, Adeyemo also launched a bilateral cyber task force with Israel to combat ransomware threats against the financial industry.
In the agreement, both nations pledged to share information related to cyber threats targeting the financial sector, train staff in the cybersecurity field, and conduct cross-border cybersecurity exercises.
“This partnership has already resulted in the sharing of real time cyber threat data to prevent the spread of ransomware and other cyberattacks from impacting the U.S. financial sector,” Adeyemo said in a statement on Thursday.
The agreement also follows President Biden’s trip to the Middle East last month, during which he pledged to expand and strengthen cyber cooperation with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Experts saw the move as a response to the rising digital threat from Iran — a common adversary of all three countries.
Though not yet at the level of Israel, Iran has proven capable of launching an array of cyberattacks, ranging from website defacement and distributed denial-of-service attacks to ransomware and cyber espionage, experts said.
Israeli officials israel formalize bilateral cyber partnership
