TEL AVIV — Israel's domestic intelligence agency has launched a
recruitment drive for its information technology unit.
The Israel Security Agency has begun a recruiting drive for university
graduates and professionals in software development. The agency has called
for recruits on its website and plans to place advertisements on
high-technology sites, Middle East Newsline reported.
"If you thought the only way to fight terror was with Arabic, think
again," the ISA said in its ad campaign.
ISA officials said the campaign reflected the agency's increasing stress
on signals intelligence collection, website monitoring as well as advanced
technology to track insurgents. They said the recruits would work in the
agency's growing IT unit, established in 1976 and which has played a major
role in the Israeli-Palestinian war.
"We want to find a needle in a stack of needles and this is very
difficult," ISA director Yuval Diskin said. "So, we need technology in data
collection and storage, generation of algorithms and information processing
and profiling."
Officials said ISA was seeking expertise in such computer languages as
Java and Net. They said the focus would be to mine data to quickly detect
threats and foil Palestinian suicide bombings.
"Today, foiling attacks isn't just about people running around in the
field," said Esther Levanon, who developed the agency's IT unit and today is
director-general of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. "It is also advance
technology, smart systems that could integrate information in real time and
capture an attacker on his way to an incident."
Ms. Levanon said ISA software experts would conduct data mining and
rapidly relay information to field agents. She said ISA would compete with
the private market for recruits.
