A company of Israeli military intelligence officers that trained AI to kill human beings are now staffing the United States’ top cybersecurity firms. In their new positions, these ex-spies are responsible for protecting America’s military data, Social Security data, and Nuclear Security Administration data, among other sensitive contracts. 

Silicon Valley has long attracted ex-spies looking for a career change. For Israel native Nir Zuk, the former head of software development for the Israeli military’s cyberwarfare division, the American tech sector has proven to be lucrative. Zuk was previously the lead software developer for IDF Unit 8200, the cyber intelligence arm of the Zionist military, which The Guardian has called Israel’s equivalent of the NSA in terms of its surveillance capacity and mandate.

Earlier this month, Zuk raised $45 million in seed capital for his new cybersecurity startup Cylake with the help of investors from Greylock Partners, a venture capital firm with roots in Peter Thiel’s “PayPal mafia.” Other tech billionaire alumni of the PayPal mafia include Elon Musk and Trump’s current AI czar David Sacks. It might sound alarming that a former Israeli spy and cyberwarfare expert with backing from MAGA-aligned venture capital is looking to become one of the biggest players in U.S. cybersecurity. Except he already is.

Twenty years before his current venture with Cylake, Zuk founded Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity firm specializing in firewalls and cloud network services. Zuk received early backing from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, another front of Peter Thiel’s PayPal mafia affiliated with Musk, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and violent Islamophobe Shaun Maguire. Zuk is not the only former Israeli spy that Sequoia has partnered with – Since 2020, the venture capital firm has backed cybersecurity firm Wiz, founded by IDF Unit 8200 captain Assaf Rappaport. 

With backing from Sequoia Capital, Zuk grew Palo Alto Networks into America’s leading firewall and cloud protection company. As of 2024, Palo Alto Networks held a dominant 28.4% of the total network security market. The company’s market cap is currently $127 billion.

Zuk’s secret to dominating the cybersecurity industry? Contracts with federal agencies – tons of federal agencies, from the most mundane to the most sensitive and top secret. According to federal spending data, Palo Alto Networks has been awarded over $300 million in federal contracts since its inception, providing firewall and cloud services to the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Nuclear Security Administration, Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs, and more.

As Palo Alto Networks became the U.S. government’s go-to contractor for protecting crucial government data, Zuk brought many fellow Israeli spies with him to share in the success. Over 100 current or former employees of Palo Alto Networks are former members of IDF Unit 8200 or other Israeli military intelligence units, according to public LinkedIn profiles compiled in an activist-run database known as the Eagle Mission Influence Network.

IDF Unit 8200 is not just the cyberintelligence arm of the Israeli military, it also has a hand in developing the tools of surveillance and extermination that Israel uses against Palestinians. In 2024, +972 magazine reported that the commander of Unit 8200 was involved in the implementation of Israel’s “Lavender” system, an AI technology that helps the Israeli military select bombing targets in Gaza. The Lavender system gathers data on all 2.3 million residents of Gaza, assigns each individual a score of 1 to 100 representing the likelihood that they are a militant, and recommends targets to the Israeli military. This system is not designed to protect civilians – in fact it had the effect of expanding the genocide to more civilian targets. Aerial strikes using the Lavender program favor using unguided missiles, which tend to destroy entire buildings. One Israeli intelligence officer is quoted in the report saying “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people.”

With the knowledge that Palo Alto Networks’ founder and staff were responsible for developing the AI systems behind a genocide, the U.S. government awarded over $300 million in contracts to the company, putting them in charge of protecting nuclear security data, Social Security data, and more. Hosting such sensitive government data requires a highly exclusive and obscure security clearance known as FedRAMP High Tier clearance, administered by the General Services Administration (GSA). 

According to the FedRAMP website, High Tier security clearance grants companies access to “law enforcement and emergency services systems, financial systems, health systems, and any other system where loss of confidentiality, integrity or availability could be expected to have a severe or catastrophic adverse effect.” Only 48 contractors possess this security clearance.

While the GSA was admitting over a hundred former Israeli spies to the highest level of IT security clearance, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi found a way to profit off of this major national security decision. According to financial disclosures, Pelosi purchased at least $600,000 in Palo Alto Networks call options in February 2024, long before the company was awarded FedRAMP High Tier security clearance. Then in December of that year, one day after the security clearance was granted, she exercised her call option to gain equity in the company.

While the personal enrichment of Pelosi stands out as a possible conflict of interest, the broader issue here is the trend of both parties taking for granted that Israeli intelligence officials should have access to Americans’ most sensitive data. The process of awarding high-level cybersecurity contracts is seen as an opportunity to make money and form business partnerships, not as a vital national security and human rights issue requiring strict ethical oversight. The point of a security clearance system like FedRAMP is to thoroughly vet the private corporations that have access to top secret data, and yet the program appears to select for companies with the worst human rights records, staffed largely by foreign intelligence officers.

The human rights record of IDF Unit 8200, and their partnerships in the U.S. tech sector, has been called into question before. Last September, Microsoft cancelled contracts with IDF Unit 8200 after The Guardian revealed that Microsoft cloud services were being used to surveil Palestinians living under military occupation. 

Yet Zuk’s new venture, Cylake, is poised to further entangle the U.S. cybersecurity state and tech sector with Israeli intelligence. Cylake is selling  “AI-native cybersecurity” services. We’ve seen this before – military intelligence officers joining the tech sector to sell domestic AI-powered “security” at home – and it gave us Israeli drones and surveillance towers at the U.S. southern border, and ICE using Palantir’s AI systems to track immigrants’ movements.

Under the current cybersecurity regime, Americans’ most sensitive data is in the hands of foreign ex-spies guilty of genocide. Meanwhile, the elected officials who are supposed to act as watchdogs to this phenomenon only see it as an opportunity to cash in. IDF Unit 8200 committed significant crimes against humanity long before many of these cybersecurity contracts with the U.S. government were signed – but even with the knowledge that Unit 8200 designed AI tools to track and kill people in Palestine, federal agencies from the Social Security Administration to the Nuclear Security Administration opened their doors to the agency’s personnel and technology.

With figures like Musk, Thiel, and Zuk at the top of Silicon Valley, and no ethics oversight from the federal government, we are left to wonder who, if anyone, in the tech sector has the public’s interest in mind. These individuals did not get to their high position to provide a public service, they got there to propagate the wars and technologies of death that enrich them.

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