BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — Israel will be among the providers of cyber defense and cybersecurity to the G20 meeting that begins at the end of the month.
The 13th meeting of the international forum of 20 countries will meet Nov. 30 in Buenos Aires — the first G20 summit to be hosted in South America.
The Defense Ministry of Argentina signed a contract worth more than $5 million with its Israeli counterpart last year to provide the cyber defense and cybersecurity services to the meeting. Israel is not a member of the G20 group. The contract is for the implementation of a Cyber Defense Informatics Emergency Response Team (CERT) and a Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT).
On Sept. 21, the countries signed the Implementation Agreement for the project. The cyber defense program includes the capability to inhibit drones to a certain range of action. The cybersecurity software includes the ability to collect and analyze information from social networks.
There have been recent developments in security and terrorist activities in Buenos Aires.
On Friday, Federal Police in Argentina arrested two brothers suspected of ties to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement based on information provided by DAIA, the umbrella group of Argentine Jewish communities. The police discovered a small arsenal that included a rifle, one shotgun and a number of pistols, among other weapons.
DAIA has said it received an anonymous tip about the brothers in January, which it reported to police. A federal judge ordered the arrests of Axel Ezequiel Abraham Salomon and Kevin Gamal Abraham Salomon. There is an ongoing investigation of Hezbollah links in Buenos Aires.
It recently came to light that the tip likely came from Israel’s Mossad, the country’s national intelligence agency.
Earlier this year, Argentina froze the assets of a suspected Hezbollah fundraising network. Suspected Hezbollah operative Assad Ahmad Barakat was subsequently arrested near Brazil’s border with Argentina and Paraguay.
The G20 is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The Argentinean Federal Intelligence Agency, or AFI, will form part of a group of 25,000 agents, military officers and police officers providing security for the event.
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