The News Lens
Date: 2018/11/13
By: Philip Hsu
Credit: Depositphotos, Asia Dialogue
Could Israel Be a Model for Taiwan’s Burgeoning Cybersecurity Industry?
Israel and Taiwan share considerable commonalities, giving Taiwan’s developing cybersecurity industry ample learning opportunities.
In late 2016, the Taiwanese technology magazine iThome ran a series of articles extolling the virtues of Israel’s cyber security industry and suggesting lessons for developing a homegrown cyber industry that could be applied to Taiwan. In particular, the articles honed in on the importance of the Israeli Defense Force’s Unit 8200 signal intelligence unit as a cyber vanguard, a start-up incubator nurturing new generations of cyber companies and hackers in addition to fulfilling its role as an elite military unit.
This sentiment proved prescient, as just half a year later the Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) government inaugurated Taiwan’s “Cyber Fourth Service,” with President Tsai herself “bestowing a mission” on the new cyber corps to become a “vanguard” of the government’s cybersecurity efforts and drive domestic cyber research, academic, and industry activity.
The commonalities between Israel and Taiwan’s cyber polices don’t end there: Both governments have opted to develop “clusters” of cybersecurity companies in their own way, Israel through developing the Beersheba cybersecurity industrial cluster, and Taiwan in consolidating its support of its cyber sector through its new Cybersecurity Management Law and both military and non-military spending. [FULL STORY]