Israeli servicemen will be banned from accessing social networks from their work computers

Haaretz news agency reports that the Israeli Defense Forces command is going to block access for soldiers to the most popular sites on the Internet, among them “Twitter”, “Facebook” and “Gmail.

According to Gadi Abadi, commander of the unit that specializes in information security and is attached to the Intelligence Corps of the Israeli army, from now on access to these and some other sites will be closed for absolutely all computers that are located at Israeli military bases. Abadi also noted that computers located in institutions that store classified data will also be blocked.

Commenting on the reason for taking this step, Ghadi Abadi explained that the restrictions are mainly introduced to ensure a higher level of information security in the country. In his opinion, when working with a computer in a working environment, the risk of a soldier making a mistake that could lead to an unintentional leak of classified information is quite high. However, the danger of committing such inaccuracies becomes much lower during the holidays.

Thus, military personnel will not be completely deprived of the ability to use social networks and other sites for their needs, access to which will be restricted. Consequently, soldiers will still be able to access the aforementioned portals from their cell phones as well as computers that are in their barracks, in their recreation rooms.

Recall that in 2006, the Israeli army formed a special unit, whose main task is scanning social networks, due to the detection and subsequent prevention of leakage of sensitive military data. To combat such leaks more effectively, all Israeli soldiers are given a memo reminding them that any picture of an Israeli soldier or his weapon that appears on the Internet makes it easier for Palestinian radicals belonging to Hamas to prepare terrorist attacks against Israel.