State governments are jostling to win a major cyber security investment from the multibillion-dollar Israeli government-owned electricity company, as the business implications of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s first Australian visit begin to take shape.
Ofer Bloch, chief executive of the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), was in Australia with the Prime Minister’s accompanying delegation of business leaders and spoke to The Australian Financial Review about his hunt for a local headquarters for the IEC’s 50 per cent-owned cyber security training business, CyberGym.
CyberGym is a cyber training organisation, targeting government and corporate clients. It was formed in conjunction with the IEC because the electricity organisation is one of the most cyber-attacked organisations in the world. It is forced to defend up to 20 million threats a month.
“IEC sees Australia as a big business development opportunity,” Mr Bloch said.
“CyberGym for us is the first step to see how it goes in and to get a feel for the market. Then we can hopefully go forward into other ventures.”
Mr Bloch said the IEC was hoping to form partnerships with local infrastructure or engineering companies with complimentary skill-sets to form joint ventures in Asia and other foreign markets.
The company runs courses for IT professionals through to board members and mid-tier managers, placing them in a real-life cyber attack situation and coaching them on how to respond.
Read the full article by Yolanda Redrup at the Australian Financial Review.