In a brief press release, CYBERBIT, a subsidiary of Israeli security company Elbit Systems has signed a $22 million deal with an unnamed Asia-Pacific country. The deal is for the provision of intelligence along with cyber analysis and research systems. The deal will last for two years.
At the heart of the deal is CYBERBIT’s WiT (Wise Intelligence Technology) system. It is aimed at government departments from law enforcement to intelligence services who are involved in dealing with cyber incidents. The system captures and records data, provides a series of analysis tools and is capable of dealing with very large amounts of data.
Due to the brevity of the press release it isn’t clear whether this is the basic WiT solution or if it will also include the WiT OSINT solution which is aimed at web intelligence. It would be a surprise indeed if this is a deal for just part of the WiT set of products as they are designed to work together.
Another surprise is that there is no mention of the CyberShield suite of products which provide additional capability in terms of protecting sensitive networks. Any organisations looking to gather intelligence is equally likely to want to protect its intelligence gathering network and it may be that this is part of the wider deal that will be delivered down the line.
According to a statement from Adi Dar, General Manager of CYBERBIT: “We are proud to be selected to supply these advanced operational systems, which provide our customers with a significant leap forward in their intelligence analysis and collection capabilities. CYBERBIT is a world leader in the fields of SIGINT (Signal Intelligence) and cyber defense, with cutting edge solutions highly suitable for governmental agencies, large commercial organizations and critical infrastructure sites.”
Conclusion
This is another deal for Elbit Systems who have announced several customer wins for their CYBERBIT systems division over the last year. The decision to name the Asia-Pacific country should come as no surprise as this type of deal is often kept to the bare minimum in terms of public announcements. Irrespective of who the end customer is, CYBERBIT is beginning to position itself as one of the major players in this market.
