"How Israel became a Cyber SuperPower"

While Israel accounts for only 0.1 percent of the global population, it’s responsible for 5 percent of the global cyber-security market share and accounts for 15 percent of global cyber-security investments since 2014.

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In 2017, Israeli cyber-security companies raised $815 million across 81 funding rounds. Israel is home to more than 300 active cyber-security companies – more than 150 of which have been launched since 2012.

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In the first decade of this century, Israel sparked a disproportionately large number of successful technology companies. It has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than any country outside the United States, more than China, Europe, India, Japan, and Korea combined.

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Amazon, Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Google, Cisco, and other technology giants have important research and development centers in Haifa, Herzliya, and Tel Aviv.

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Israel has benefited from a handful of world-class universities and the immigration of a large number of Jewish Russian scientists and engineers into the country. However, much of the knowledge that drove Israel to become a “start-up nation” came from the military.

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Almost every non-Arab citizen serves in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and veterans of Unit 8200, the IDF equivalent of the NSA, have founded a high number of technology firms. Unit 8200 is famous for the STUXNET cyber attack in sabotaging nuclear programs of Iran.

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is applying the model of innovation and entrepreneurship to cybersecurity.
“Although the field is not precise . . . we must enter it . . . and become a world cyberpower,”

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Netanyahu told participants in a 2011 conference in Tel Aviv. “This is possible. We’re no longer crawling, we’re walking, and soon we will be running forward.” Netanyahu’s efforts have included the establishment of a new National Cyber Defense Authority with a budget.....

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...of over $500 million and the creation of a cyber threat research cluster in the desert city of Beersheba. The cluster encompasses branches of Unit 8200, Israel’s computer emergency response team, private companies, multinational firms, and Ben-Gurion University.

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Ben Gurion is the first university in the country with a graduate program in cybersecurity. By the end of 2014, 8 Israeli cybersecurity companies had been sold for almost $700 million, and Israel accounted for 13 percent of new global research and development in cybersecurity.

Reference:
The Hacked World Order by Adam Segal