Israel: America’s Critical Cybersecurity Ally
By Paul Steidler: The United States and Israel have a strong and mutually beneficial working relationship on cybersecurity cooperation, which has been quietly yielding major benefits for both countries.
Israel has faced relentless cyberattacks from Iran since October 7, 2023. And Iran has also put the U.S. on its cyber hit list.
The Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, issued on March 18, 2025 (bolded and italicized in the original), warned:
“Iran’s growing expertise and willingness to conduct aggressive cyber operations make it a major threat to the security of U.S. networks and data. Guidance from Iranian leaders has incentivized cyber actors to become more aggressive in developing capabilities to conduct cyber attacks.”
While Iranian attackers have periodically damaged Israel’s banking and payments system, the effects have been contained. The U.S. has also avoided damage, though Iranian hackers penetrated the 2024 Trump campaign, stealing documents.
Heightened vigilance is essential as the Israel-Iran conflict continues, but the foundation for cooperation is deep and wide. In June 2017, the Trump Administration and Israel announced a U.S.-Israel Cyber Working Group, followed by meetings of top government and cyber officials from both countries.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been effusive in praising the group:
“The collaboration between the United States and Israel is a strong example of effective international cooperation in cyber. The connection points between the U.S. and Israel on cybersecurity are deep, multi-faceted, and make for a great case study in forging strong ties among governments and private sectors across the globe.”
Small, tiny Israel is a David slaying many Goliaths in cybersecurity fights. With a population of seven million people, its information technology and AI sector is bigger and stronger than the vast majority of countries in the European Union.
Its tech sector includes Wiz, a leading cloud security platform that Google is seeking to buy. It was founded in 2020 by four former members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The same group of four at Wiz had founded Adallom, a cloud security company that Microsoft acquired in 2015.
For the sake of protecting America from cyberattacks and to help the U.S. win the AI race against China, a close, seamless relationship between the U.S. and Israel on tech is essential. One way to accelerate this is for U.S. regulators to approve Google’s acquisition of Wiz, as it will improve cloud security and the ability to use multiple clouds.
There will continue to be many benefits from U.S. investments in Israeli tech companies, joint ventures between companies in both countries, and immediately sharing critical data when bad actors up their attacks. Furthermore, the dangers of weakening the U.S.-Israel tech relationship are profound, and benefit no one other than our enemies.