Israel’s Cyber Advantage Is No Accident. But It Isn’t Guaranteed to Last.

This week is Cyber Week in Israel, bringing cybersecurity professionals from around the world to learn from and connect with some of the leading minds in the field. Between the events this week, and witnessing the cyber bubble that is Sarona, I’ve been thinking about what makes Israel’s cybersecurity ecosystem so unusual, and so successful despite its small size.

Specifically Israel has a population of roughly 10.3 million. Yet 29 of the 60 companies on Fortune’s 2027 Cyber 60 list were founded or co-founded by Israelis. That’s a remarkable concentration of talent and commercial success. But how did Israel get to be so well-positioned?

Part of the answer comes down to timing. For the past couple of years, we’ve been hearing more and more about the ramifications of widespread AI usage. But one of AI’s most consequential effects gets less attention: it is becoming considerably easier to identify weaknesses in existing systems and develop ways to exploit them.

Google’s Mandiant M-Trends 2026 report highlights just how quickly the timeline is changing. Its researchers estimate that the mean time between a vulnerability’s public disclosure and its first observed exploitation has fallen to negative seven days. Put simply, attackers are exploiting some vulnerabilities before the public even knows they exist. This makes traditional approaches to cybersecurity, which often rely on identifying vulnerabilities after disclosure and then applying patches, increasingly inadequate.

Separately, cybersecurity company Cogent analyzed more than 69,000 vulnerabilities and found that the average time between disclosure and the availability of an exploit fell from 125.3 days in January 2025 to just half a day by April 2026. The company attributes much of this acceleration to AI-assisted exploit development.

This presents a serious problem for organizations whose security strategies still depend heavily on scheduled scans and patch cycles. The assumption that defenders have days or weeks to respond to a newly discovered vulnerability is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. The advantage is shifting toward those who can identify weaknesses, anticipate attacks and develop defenses quickly.

Israel is particularly well positioned to compete in this environment. Military service is mandatory, and many technically talented young Israelis spend their service in intelligence and cyber units, often Unit 8200. While many aspiring engineers in the United States spend their early twenties studying computer science at elite universities, some of their Israeli counterparts are already working on real-world intelligence and cybersecurity challenges. They are exposed to sophisticated systems, adversarial thinking and problems with stakes far higher than most of the jobs they will hold in tech later.

After their service, many go on to establish companies addressing problems they encountered firsthand. This cycle has repeated itself across generations of founders, helping build an industry that now competes on a global scale. Indeed, it is difficult to separate Israel’s success in cybersecurity from the technical training, institutional experience and networks that its military has helped produce.

Another defining feature of the Israeli ecosystem is how close-knit it is. Foreigners may not realize how openly cybersecurity founders here exchange ideas and information with one another. Many served together in the same units, and the bond between army buddies is difficult to explain without seeing it for yourself. In a relatively small country, people are often just one introduction away from the person they need to reach.

That interconnectedness matters. Building a successful cybersecurity company requires more than identifying a market opportunity. It requires understanding emerging threats, finding the right technical (and non-technical) talent and translating a problem into a product before the market moves on. Israel’s unusually concentrated network of founders, engineers and investors can help accelerate that process. In a field where the time between an emerging threat and an actual attack is shrinking, the ability to move quickly is a significant advantage.

There is another pragmatic reason Israel has developed such a strong cybersecurity industry: the country is naturally a frequent target of cyberattacks. According to the Israel National Cyber Directorate, more than 26,000 cyber incidents were handled in 2025, a 55% increase over the previous year. The Directorate also issued approximately 2,480 alerts, including more than 2,300 proactive notifications to organizations about targeted threats. Microsoft’s 2025 Digital Defense Report also placed Israel third among the countries where its customers were most frequently affected by cyber threats.

The experience of defending against persistent attacks creates a unique kind of urgency. Israeli organizations, institutions and security professionals are not dealing in hypotheticals. They operate in an environment where cyber threats are an ongoing part of the national security landscape. That exposure does not automatically translate into better technology, but it creates a constant incentive to learn, adapt and improve. It also creates a feedback loop between the threats organizations face, the weaknesses they discover and the technologies companies develop to address them.

The economic stakes are significant, too. Years of war have placed considerable pressure on Israel’s economy, making the sectors in which the country has a genuine global competitive advantage all the more important. Cybersecurity is one of them, and investors seem to agree. According to CTech’s tally, Israeli cybersecurity startups raised at least $2.425 billion in the third quarter of 2026, nearly half of global venture investment in the sector. Cyera alone raised another $400 million from Goldman Sachs in September, bringing its 2026 fundraising total to $1.4 billion. Much of the newest investment is flowing into companies focused on securing AI agents and the infrastructure behind them.

There are, however, reasons not to take Israel’s position for granted. Artificial intelligence is making offensive cyber capabilities more accessible, potentially reducing the advantage that comes with years of specialized experience. Investment is also increasingly concentrated in established companies, while early-stage founders face a more difficult fundraising environment.

There is also the question of retaining Israeli-founded companies and their leadership in the country. Many Israeli founders eventually move to New York or other US cities, often to be closer to their largest customers, investors and business partners, rather than spending so much of their time flying back and forth across the Atlantic. This makes commercial sense, particularly when the US is such an important market for cybersecurity companies. But it also raises a broader question about how Israel can ensure that the companies it helps create continue contributing to its domestic economy.

Israel has spent decades developing a cybersecurity ecosystem that is difficult to replicate. But maintaining it will require more than producing talented engineers and successful founders. It will require continued investment in research, education and early-stage companies, as well as an environment in which ambitious people have a reason to build and remain here.

Israel’s cyber advantage is no accident. It is the product of a particular combination of military experience, entrepreneurial culture, close professional networks and the realities of operating in a country that faces persistent security threats. But none of those advantages guarantees future success. Other countries are investing heavily in cybersecurity, and the technology is changing quickly.

I expect Israel to remain a major source of the next generation of cybersecurity companies. Not simply because of its history in the field, but because the conditions that helped foster its cyber ecosystem are becoming even more relevant in the age of AI. The challenge now is to make sure that advantage translates into lasting national strength, rather than becoming another Israeli success story built abroad.