Israel’s State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman on Tuesday published a series of sharply critical reports warning of serious failures in Israel’s cyber preparedness and in the quality of digital services provided to the public.
The reports detail what the Comptroller described as systemic failures, ongoing negligence, and organizational shortcomings in the Foreign Ministry, the Construction and Housing Ministry, the Courts Administration, and the National Digital Agency, during a period in which Israel remains a major target for cyber attacks by Iran and its proxies.
One of the most serious findings relates to the government’s conduct following the outbreak of the Swords of Iron war. According to the report, although the National Cyber Directorate formulated special emergency guidelines to protect against cyber attacks immediately after October 7, those instructions were not passed on to some of the country’s emergency bodies.
The report further found that a large majority of government ministries continued for months to use a key digital tool that was known to be vulnerable to cyber attacks and hostile infiltration.
The Comptroller’s review focused in particular on two central government ministries and pointed to what it described as years of neglect.
At the Foreign Ministry, the report cited a longstanding technological gap in the ministry’s computer systems, alongside organizational shortcomings that the Comptroller said did not match the level of intelligence-based threats facing the ministry. The report warned that in the absence of a comprehensive and updated cyber defense policy, the ministry remains vulnerable to cyber attacks and leaks of sensitive diplomatic information. Serious deficiencies were also found in the protection of personal information belonging to employees and citizens.
Regarding the Construction and Housing Ministry, the Comptroller found that despite holding extensive databases containing millions of sensitive records - including information on public housing tenants, aid recipients, participants in subsidized housing programs, and contractors - the ministry failed for eight years to properly regulate the registration of nine information databases as required under privacy protection regulations, potentially putting the privacy of millions of citizens at risk.
Englman issued a direct warning to the government and called for immediate corrective action.
“In light of the real threats from Iran, the Government of Israel must be fully prepared for cyber attacks as well," he said. “The reports identified significant deficiencies that must be corrected immediately. Emergency bodies were not prepared as required, and the risk of cyber attacks against these bodies was simply not sufficiently examined."
Alongside the cyber security failures, the Comptroller also criticized what he described as the government’s technological lag in making public services digitally accessible.
Although strategic government decisions on the matter were adopted a decade ago, the report found that only a small percentage of government services are currently available through the government’s personal digital portal, while many public bodies have yet to connect to the national digital identification system.
“Digital service for citizens is not a luxury," Englman said, calling on the National Digital Agency to prepare an immediate and detailed work plan to push government ministries, agencies, and local authorities to significantly expand the scope of digital services and applications.