US bolsters cyber alliance to counter rising Iran threat

President Biden vowed to expand cyber cooperation with Israel and Saudi Arabia on his trip to the Middle East last week, a move experts see as a direct response to the rising digital threat from Iran.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia signed bilateral agreements to strengthen their cybersecurity partnership and share information related to cyber threats and malicious actors, while Israel and the U.S. pledged to ramp up collaboration to combat cybercrime.

“In both cases, we have to acknowledge that Iran is the primary driver of a lot of what happened during Biden’s trip, and this extends to cyber space as well,” said Jason Blessing, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.