(Photo: Noriko Hayashi/Bloomberg)
By Amir Mizroch - May 11, 2019
TEL AVIV --Executives from Israeli cyber intelligence firm, KELA Group, which monitors hacking threats in the dark recesses of the Dark Net –a vast unknown and encrypted part of the Internet that most of us never see--recently met with a large Japanese carmaker with news that it was wide open to a particularly vicious hacking attack called WannaCry. There were signs the hackers were about to launch the attack on automated processes the carmaker heavily relies on. Once in control of the automation systems at the factories, the hackers would extort a ransom, a method known as a ransomware attack, recalls Doron Levit, a KELA executive. What’s worse, Levit said, is that the attackers had exploited a known cyber vulnerability which the carmaker’s security team had not patched, and which had already sowed chaos at manufacturers and hospitals worldwide.
It was their lucky day,” Levit says, adding that the tip-off was very well received by the Japanese company's management.
It was a lucky break for Levit’s company too, who had recently signed a business development partnership with Japanese investment firm Hijojo Partners to access large Japanese industrial corporations dealing with complex automation and robotics processes –two areas of increasing strategic economic priority for Japan.
Read More: Forbes