Selling Secrecy: Israel Turning The World’s Cyber Problems Into Economic Opportunities

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.ibtimes.com/selling-secrecy-israel-turning-worlds-cyber-problems-economic-opportunities-1353117

By Vanessa O'Brien
International Business Times
July 19, 2013

TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israel conceals some of its best-kept secrets deep in 
the inhospitable Negev Desert: its nuclear research center near Dimona, 
its advanced agricultural research programs, its base for Unit 8200 of the 
army’s intelligence corps.

Now, the heat-drenched region’s largest city, Beer Sheva, is hoping to 
turn the world’s need for secrecy into new shekels. The country’s 
first-ever private cybersecurity incubator is being established in Beer 
Sheva under a partnership between the Israeli venture capital firm 
Jerusalem Venture Partners and Ben Gurion University. The incubator is set 
to open its doors in October in a facility built at a cost of 50 million 
new shekels (NIS; US$12.5 million) in a new technology park conveniently 
located near the Israel Defence Force’s likewise new computer technology 
and intelligence base in the city, which opened for business last week.

The Israeli government estimates that more than 10,000 technology 
employees will move south to the cybersecurity center, and the Israeli 
Cabinet this week announced a major additional investment (NIS 500 
million, or US $125 million) for economic development, housing, services 
and infrastructure improvements to accommodate the growth. Jerusalem 
Venture Partners has meanwhile begun searching for cyber startups to 
nurture. By 2020, JVP projects a NIS 1.4 to 1.7 billion increase in 
economic activity in the Negev each year, most of it in the realm of the 
cyber industry. But those figures, like most cited by the government and 
its partners regarding the plans for the Negev, are not fully quantified; 
other economic benefits are typically described as “several billion” or 
“hundreds of millions,” the proponents being characteristically cagey 
about disclosing too many details.

[...]

--
Find the best InfoSec talent without breaking your budget!
Post a Job! $99 for 31 days
http://www.hotinfosecjobs.com/