Israel Defense Forces Home Front Command meets with FEMA in Washington, DC. Photo: Mike Moore/Wikimedia Commons.

The Israel Defense Forces is stepping up its efforts on the cyber front and will soon post a “cyberdefense” officer to each of its four regional commands, Israel Hayom reported.

Each command—Northern, Southern, Central and Homefront—will be appointed an officer who will be under the direct professional command of the IDF’s Computer Service Directorate, which is responsible for the army’s cyberdefenses. Similar officers are already stationed to several of the army’s other branches.

On Sunday the first of these officers, with the rank of lieutenant, will be posted to IDF Central Command. The command’s computer services officer, Col. Yariv Nir, explained: “The officer will lead, on the command level, coordination efforts between the Computer Service Directorate’s Cyber Defense Division and [Central] Command.”

Nir added that the officer, who will work in conjunction with the Information Security Department, will be tasked with implementing the department’s decisions and ensuring that only those with security clearance for certain information can access it. In addition, the officer will be responsible for dealing with irregular incidents that occur in the cyber sphere.

“Today we increasingly utilize technological and command and control systems, which make it possible for commanders to make better decisions,” Nir said. “We must ensure that these systems function unhampered, and in order to do so we must adequately protect them. Just as the army is trusted with protecting Israel’s borders, the Computer Service Directorate is trusted with defending its cyber borders.”