The new unit from Israel internal security agency will protect Israel’s most critical infrastructure against cyber terror attacks.

Iran is actively trying to hack Israel’s critical online systems, the head of the Shin Bet’s new SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) unit told Yedioth Ahronoth in an exclusive interview.

The Israel Security Agency officials said that aside from the hundreds of thousands of low-grade cyber attacks by Islamist hackers, who try to breach Israel’s cyber infrastructure on a daily basis, the past three years have seen a “single-digit number” of high-grade attacks.

Some three months ago, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta accused Tehran of launching a series of cyber attack against US-based banks.

The assault prompted a broad legislative move by Israel to have the Shin Bet’s cyber unit protect the country’s critical online grids.

“We assume that our adversary is smarter than us,” Izzy, of Israel’s National Information Security Authority, said. “The Iranians were the ones to invent chess, some 5,000 years ago. They cannot be dismissed.”

The new cyber unit is responsible for protecting all of Israel’s national cyber infrastructure systems. It employs a group of talented young hackers, whose mission is to try and breach demo-grids akin to those used by banks, Israel Electric Corp, the Water Authority and so on.

The new division also houses a cyber-intelligence unit.