by Ori Kitov March 12, 2022
We’re all witnessing the war in Ukraine, and the horrific photos that come from there. A particularly striking photo is the photo from the maternity hospital which was viciously bombed. To me, this picture stood out especially because it reflects a particularly harsh moral conduct, yes, even in relation to a situation of war.
Now let’s go a step or two towards the future, and sorry in advance that I’m shattering John Lennon’s “Imagine” illusion for all of us. Wars, unfortunately will continue to happen. I do not see the world succeeding in eradicating the evil that exists in it completely.
In my humble opinion, the main and major difference between today’s and tomorrow’s war is going to be mainly – weapons type and characteristics. You do not have to be a prophet to assume that we will see much more use of cyber. There will be no need to necessarily bomb a power plant to shut it down, there will not be the same need for an air defense system to protect it. In order to disable the power plant, offensive cyber will be used, and instead of the air defense system, the power plant will need a defensive cyber system.
Call me naive, but where I come from, hospitals are taboo, never attacked. Every human being with little morality understands that there are goals that are “out of the game”.
The War in Ukraine in general and the attack on the maternity hospital in Ukraine in particular, give us a dramatic wake-up call accompanied by a huge exclamation mark, regarding the importance of defensive cyber, with a significant emphasis on medical institutions, since apparently, we cannot have the privilege to trust the moral and human codes of humanity when it comes to Wars.
Imagine a situation where, in the future, a random state or its proxies could cause complete chaos in the hospitals of the other state. Imagine, for instance, that dialysis patients hospitalized might fall victim to cyber manipulation on the devices that keep them alive, and this while innocent of any crime. Imagine a situation where in the middle of a critical brain surgery, there is a power outage. Know what? More simple and less dramatic (or actually much more so) imagine a situation where all the data of a particular hospital system is simply deleted and all the existing knowledge related to the hospitalized patients simply disappears.
This thing, which is not as badly photographed as the physical demolitions of a hospital, is photographed much “better” and therefore much more likely to have such attacks done through cyberspace.
This is why, we at AISH have united together. For us, it’s much more than a business initiative, it’s a life mission. Our goal is to improve the world and the lives of millions living in it, our goal is to add power to good over evil.
