Central Unit of Technology Intelligence
Name used in corporate filings for Israel's Unit 8200
The Central Unit of Technology Intelligence is an Israeli signals intelligence unit. It is also known as Unit 8200. The name appears in the corporate biography of Pinhas Buchris, who commanded Unit 8200 from 1997 to 2001, and is not the unit's official title.[1][2]
Origin of the name
A 2007 annual report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission by Protalix BioTherapeutics, where Buchris was a director, states that "From 1997 through 2001, he led the Israeli Defense Force's largest technology information gathering unit, the Central Unit of Technology Intelligence."[1] The same wording was used in earlier filings by the company under its former name, Orthodontix Inc., in December 2006 and January 2007.[3]
Globes reported in 2003 that Buchris was appointed commander of Unit 8200 in 1997 and left the post in July 2001, the same period the filing gives for the "Central Unit of Technology Intelligence".[2] The phrase is therefore a corporate English rendering for Unit 8200, not a separate unit.
Other names for Unit 8200
Unit 8200 has been referred to in public as the Central Collection Unit.[4] In National Security Agency documents released by Edward Snowden it appears as the Israeli SIGINT National Unit (ISNU).[5][6] The Israel Defense Forces describes the unit as the Military Intelligence Directorate's "main information gathering unit" and the largest of its three main units.[7]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Protalix BioTherapeutics, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2006, US Securities and Exchange Commission, filed 30 March 2007.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Dan Yachin, מ"סיירת מטכ'ל" של ההיי-טק הצה"לי - לסיכון שבקרנות האזרחיות (From the "Sayeret Matkal" of IDF high-tech to the risk of civilian funds), Globes, 23 January 2003 (Hebrew).
- ↑ US Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR full-text search for "Central Unit of Technology Intelligence", accessed 20 October 2026 (four filings by Orthodontix Inc. and Protalix BioTherapeutics, December 2006 – July 2007).
- ↑ Stacy Perman, Spies Inc. Business Innovation from Israel's Masters of Espionage, Pearson Education, 2005, p.12.
- ↑ Ynet, Doc: NSA shares Americans' data with Israel, Ynetnews, 11 September 2013.
- ↑ Sean Cordey, Trend Analysis: The Israeli Unit 8200 – An OSINT-based study, CSS Cyber Defense Project, Center for Security Studies, ETH Zürich, December 2019.
- ↑ Israel Defense Forces, Military Intelligence Directorate, IDF, 29 December 2021.