This week is ‘cyber week’ in Israel. The words of the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, could apply to many nations:

There is a great opportunity and a great challenge. Technological progress is a blessing, but also a curse, and the biggest curse is that the Internet of Things is making everything vulnerable. Everything is a target for a cyber attack, and when I say everything, I mean everything – from our bank accounts to national security. Even the way we conduct elections in Israel is vulnerable. We cannot grow, therefore, unless we have cyber security….

The size of Israel’s cyber community is quite daunting, considering the country is 50% desert. There are around 430 companies, of whom at least 40 are selling in over 10 countries. In 2015, 78 companies raised US$540 million, which is about 20% up on 2014. A further 60 announced exits to the value of US$1.16 billion. It is estimated that about 17,000 people are employed in the domestic industry.

These stats are not one-off. For example, Fireglass has developed a unique approach to preventing large financial institutions from suffering a cyber attack. It has just raised US$20million to fund an overseas marketing campaign.

A similar story can be told of imVision, which is tackling the growing threat to the telecom cloud community. It has raised US$4 million. The investors include a Chinese group, probably the first time that China has engaged the Israeli cyber community.

It is significant that in 2015 funding for the Israeli high tech community hit an ‘all time high’. It reached nearly US$4.5 billion, an increase of 30% on 2014. Around 29% of this was in software, the core of the cyber industry.

Given the current global slowdown, it is not easy to predict how 2016 will pan out. What is certain is that billions of people around the world – through safer financial transactions, protected television providers, homeland security or otherwise – are already better off because of Israeli cyber technology.