The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted drills targeting alien spacecraft and warding off a UFO invasion. The drill saw Israel Air Force hacker units, known as Ofek (Horizon), protecting Israel Defense Forces computer systems against breaches from alien hackers, while simultaneously targeting the sophisticated computer systems of the invading UFO alien spacecraft.
While the dramatic Israel Defense Forces drills concerned an immense UFO invasion and all the alien-fighting bravado of a cigar-smoking Will Smith, the actual reason for the drills was more mundane: learning new methods to attack Hamas systems without compromising cyber defenses.
Why the Israel Defense Forces Are Fighting Aliens
The Israel Defense Forces alien invasion drills were conducted in response to cyber-attacks on communications systems during the 2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict that cost the lives of 2,205 Palestinians (1,483 civilians) and 72 Israelis (6 civilians). Related efforts to guard Israel’s computer systems resulted in the recent creation of a National Cyber Authority to team with the existing Israel National Cyber Bureau.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a major proponent of additional cyber warfare initiatives.
“Cyber threats can paralyze nations," Netanyahu said. "This is a strategic threat that can paralyze and hurt no less than other threats in various fields and we must be prepared for it on the national and international levels.”
Major cyber-attacks such as the joint US-Israeli cyber-attack on Iranian nuclear facilities have ushered in a new age of military expenditure into both offensive and defensive computer hacking techniques.
While the NSA, in partnership with its Israeli Intelligence Corps equivalent, Unit 8200, may seek to “collect it all,” this new Israel Defense Force alien invasion drill has expanded the mentality – albeit in fun -- to threats extraterrestrial, with a major component of the UFO drill being the collection of information from within the alien spaceships systems.
No word yet on cross-compatibility between terrestrial and UFO operating systems:
The Israel Defense Forces alien invasion drill was also designed to get those silly millennials to toe the cyber defense line. According to the commander of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) engineering unit, Lt. col. Meir, the goal of the UFO drills “was to make them understand the importance developing defense. We adapted the exercise to Generation Y, which loves challenges. So we prepared the framing story of an alien invasion.”
The attention-grabbing UFO scenario for the drills also seems likely to serve another purpose: covering up obvious cyber-attack training in an outlandish costume. According to the Jerusalem Post, “this strange exercise was all about putting the soldiers in the enemy’s shoes,” taking as assumed that Israel Defense Forces were learning defense by practicing offense. Ultimately, cyber-attack training pretending to be cyber-defense training may be the most fictionalized element of this UFO alien invasion drill scenario.
