{"id":51549,"topic":"ai","source":"calcalistech.com","title":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground - calcalistech.com","url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","url_hash":"b477d9cb103cb913df139657ec4e1b5925fde28a","author":"","summary":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground calcalistech.com","content":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems.\nAs artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.\nA wave of Israeli startups founded by veterans of some of the country’s biggest cybersecurity successes is racing to build the identity infrastructure for the AI era. Their argument is that existing identity systems were designed for a world of human employees accessing applications. They were not built for a future where thousands of AI agents, software bots and autonomous systems can access sensitive corporate data, execute workflows and make decisions on behalf of organizations.\nThe market is attracting significant investor attention. During 2026, Israeli startups focused on identity, access management and AI security have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, while major cybersecurity companies are beginning to consolidate around the opportunity.\nThe clearest sign yet came when Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Cyera acquired Oasis Security in a deal valued at $1 billion. The acquisition marked one of the largest transactions in Israel’s cybersecurity market and highlighted the growing importance of securing non-human identities - the software agents, machines and autonomous systems expected to become increasingly common inside enterprises.\nFor decades, identity security was built around a relatively simple question: who is accessing a system?\nCompanies invested billions of dollars in tools that authenticate employees, manage permissions and prevent unauthorized access. But the rise of AI agents is changing the equation.\nAn AI system may need access to dozens or hundreds of applications to complete tasks. It may analyze financial data, modify code, communicate with customers or make operational decisions. Unlike a human employee, however, it can operate continuously and at massive scale.\nThat creates a new security challenge.\nCompanies need to know not only whether an AI agent is authorized to access a system, but whether it should be allowed to perform a specific action at a specific moment.\nIsraeli startups entering the market believe existing identity platforms were not designed for this world.\nOne of the largest statements came in June, when NewCore emerged from stealth with $66 million in funding.\nThe company was founded by Zohar Alon, co-founder of cloud security company Dome9; Amihai Neiderman, founder of Nym; and Erez Yarkoni, former CIO of T-Mobile and Telstra.\nNewCore’s ambition is unusually large for a startup at launch: the company says it wants to compete directly with identity giants Microsoft and Okta by rebuilding identity security for the AI era.\nThe company argues that enterprises have accumulated fragmented identity systems that were designed around employees and applications, not autonomous agents.\nThe future, according to NewCore, requires a new approach that can manage access across humans, machines and AI systems.\nOasis Security, which was acquired by Cyera, focused specifically on what the industry calls non-human identities.\nThese include machine accounts, service accounts, applications and AI agents, identities that increasingly outnumber human users inside large organizations.\nBefore the acquisition, Oasis raised $120 million in a Series B round in March, targeting the growing challenge of securing machine identities as enterprises adopt more autonomous systems.\nThe company argued that traditional identity tools were not designed for environments where software could independently access systems and perform tasks without direct human supervision.\nCyera’s $1 billion acquisition shows that the issue has moved beyond a niche security concern.\nThe deal suggests major cybersecurity companies view identity management for AI systems as a strategic capability that will shape the next generation of enterprise security.\nAnother major player emerging in the category is Oak, which raised $60 million in July.\nFounded by former Torq CEO Shai Morag and Tal Marom, Oak says it is building an AI-native identity operating system designed to manage employees, machines and AI agents from a single platform.\nThe company argues that existing identity infrastructure has become a patchwork of disconnected tools that cannot handle the complexity created by autonomous systems.\nThe challenge is not simply authentication.\nIt is governance.\nWho created an AI agent? What data can it access? Which decisions can it make? How can an organization revoke its permissions if it begins behaving unexpectedly?\nThose questions are becoming increasingly urgent as companies move AI from pilot projects into core operations.\nLinx Security raised $50 million in March and positioned itself as a company aiming to do for identity what Wiz did for cloud security.\nThe company argues that AI agents and non-human identities are creating a new layer of complexity that traditional security tools cannot handle.\nVenice, founded by Rotem Lurie, raised $25 million in February to replace static enterprise permissions with dynamic access controls.\nThe company’s premise is that AI systems require permissions that can adapt in real time based on context and risk.\nOther startups are targeting narrower parts of the problem:\n- Hush Security, founded by former Meta Networks executives, raised $30 million to secure the AI workforce.\n- Offroad emerged from stealth with $7 million to build an AI identity security team.\n- Tenet raised $6 million to protect autonomous AI agents accessing sensitive workflows.\n- Capsule Security raised $7 million to secure enterprise AI agents.\nTogether, these companies illustrate how a new cybersecurity category is taking shape around AI governance, identity and access control.","image_url":"https://pic1.calcalist.co.il/picserver3/crop_images/2026/06/15/HJHTz8a11fx/HJHTz8a11fx_0_3_1600_901_0_large.jpg","lang":"en","published_at":"2026-08-02T08:09:00+00:00","fetched_at":"2026-08-02T09:15:05+00:00","status":"read","starred":0,"extract_state":"ok","summary_auto":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems. As artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.","cluster_id":null,"extract_retries":0,"extract_error":null,"contract_version":"news_item.v1","format_contract_version":"news_item_formats.v1","dedup_url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605,"usable_text_length":6176,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605}},"news_item":{"id":51549,"canonical_url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","source_url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","title":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground - calcalistech.com","source_name":"calcalistech.com","author":null,"published_at":"2026-08-02T08:09:00+00:00","locale":"en","topic":"ai","tags":[],"rss_summary":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground calcalistech.com","full_text":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems.\nAs artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.\nA wave of Israeli startups founded by veterans of some of the country’s biggest cybersecurity successes is racing to build the identity infrastructure for the AI era. Their argument is that existing identity systems were designed for a world of human employees accessing applications. They were not built for a future where thousands of AI agents, software bots and autonomous systems can access sensitive corporate data, execute workflows and make decisions on behalf of organizations.\nThe market is attracting significant investor attention. During 2026, Israeli startups focused on identity, access management and AI security have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, while major cybersecurity companies are beginning to consolidate around the opportunity.\nThe clearest sign yet came when Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Cyera acquired Oasis Security in a deal valued at $1 billion. The acquisition marked one of the largest transactions in Israel’s cybersecurity market and highlighted the growing importance of securing non-human identities - the software agents, machines and autonomous systems expected to become increasingly common inside enterprises.\nFor decades, identity security was built around a relatively simple question: who is accessing a system?\nCompanies invested billions of dollars in tools that authenticate employees, manage permissions and prevent unauthorized access. But the rise of AI agents is changing the equation.\nAn AI system may need access to dozens or hundreds of applications to complete tasks. It may analyze financial data, modify code, communicate with customers or make operational decisions. Unlike a human employee, however, it can operate continuously and at massive scale.\nThat creates a new security challenge.\nCompanies need to know not only whether an AI agent is authorized to access a system, but whether it should be allowed to perform a specific action at a specific moment.\nIsraeli startups entering the market believe existing identity platforms were not designed for this world.\nOne of the largest statements came in June, when NewCore emerged from stealth with $66 million in funding.\nThe company was founded by Zohar Alon, co-founder of cloud security company Dome9; Amihai Neiderman, founder of Nym; and Erez Yarkoni, former CIO of T-Mobile and Telstra.\nNewCore’s ambition is unusually large for a startup at launch: the company says it wants to compete directly with identity giants Microsoft and Okta by rebuilding identity security for the AI era.\nThe company argues that enterprises have accumulated fragmented identity systems that were designed around employees and applications, not autonomous agents.\nThe future, according to NewCore, requires a new approach that can manage access across humans, machines and AI systems.\nOasis Security, which was acquired by Cyera, focused specifically on what the industry calls non-human identities.\nThese include machine accounts, service accounts, applications and AI agents, identities that increasingly outnumber human users inside large organizations.\nBefore the acquisition, Oasis raised $120 million in a Series B round in March, targeting the growing challenge of securing machine identities as enterprises adopt more autonomous systems.\nThe company argued that traditional identity tools were not designed for environments where software could independently access systems and perform tasks without direct human supervision.\nCyera’s $1 billion acquisition shows that the issue has moved beyond a niche security concern.\nThe deal suggests major cybersecurity companies view identity management for AI systems as a strategic capability that will shape the next generation of enterprise security.\nAnother major player emerging in the category is Oak, which raised $60 million in July.\nFounded by former Torq CEO Shai Morag and Tal Marom, Oak says it is building an AI-native identity operating system designed to manage employees, machines and AI agents from a single platform.\nThe company argues that existing identity infrastructure has become a patchwork of disconnected tools that cannot handle the complexity created by autonomous systems.\nThe challenge is not simply authentication.\nIt is governance.\nWho created an AI agent? What data can it access? Which decisions can it make? How can an organization revoke its permissions if it begins behaving unexpectedly?\nThose questions are becoming increasingly urgent as companies move AI from pilot projects into core operations.\nLinx Security raised $50 million in March and positioned itself as a company aiming to do for identity what Wiz did for cloud security.\nThe company argues that AI agents and non-human identities are creating a new layer of complexity that traditional security tools cannot handle.\nVenice, founded by Rotem Lurie, raised $25 million in February to replace static enterprise permissions with dynamic access controls.\nThe company’s premise is that AI systems require permissions that can adapt in real time based on context and risk.\nOther startups are targeting narrower parts of the problem:\n- Hush Security, founded by former Meta Networks executives, raised $30 million to secure the AI workforce.\n- Offroad emerged from stealth with $7 million to build an AI identity security team.\n- Tenet raised $6 million to protect autonomous AI agents accessing sensitive workflows.\n- Capsule Security raised $7 million to secure enterprise AI agents.\nTogether, these companies illustrate how a new cybersecurity category is taking shape around AI governance, identity and access control.","excerpt":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems. As artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.","extraction":{"state":"ok","confidence":0.9,"error":null,"explanation":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605,"usable_text_length":6176,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605}}},"display_formats":["compact","card","full","digest_section","json"]},"daily_stack_record":{"title":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground - calcalistech.com","url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","summary":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems. As artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.","source":"calcalistech.com","date":"2026-08-02T08:09:00+00:00","content":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems.\nAs artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.\nA wave of Israeli startups founded by veterans of some of the country’s biggest cybersecurity successes is racing to build the identity infrastructure for the AI era. Their argument is that existing identity systems were designed for a world of human employees accessing applications. They were not built for a future where thousands of AI agents, software bots and autonomous systems can access sensitive corporate data, execute workflows and make decisions on behalf of organizations.\nThe market is attracting significant investor attention. During 2026, Israeli startups focused on identity, access management and AI security have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, while major cybersecurity companies are beginning to consolidate around the opportunity.\nThe clearest sign yet came when Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Cyera acquired Oasis Security in a deal valued at $1 billion. The acquisition marked one of the largest transactions in Israel’s cybersecurity market and highlighted the growing importance of securing non-human identities - the software agents, machines and autonomous systems expected to become increasingly common inside enterprises.\nFor decades, identity security was built around a relatively simple question: who is accessing a system?\nCompanies invested billions of dollars in tools that authenticate employees, manage permissions and prevent unauthorized access. But the rise of AI agents is changing the equation.\nAn AI system may need access to dozens or hundreds of applications to complete tasks. It may analyze financial data, modify code, communicate with customers or make operational decisions. Unlike a human employee, however, it can operate continuously and at massive scale.\nThat creates a new security challenge.\nCompanies need to know not only whether an AI agent is authorized to access a system, but whether it should be allowed to perform a specific action at a specific moment.\nIsraeli startups entering the market believe existing identity platforms were not designed for this world.\nOne of the largest statements came in June, when NewCore emerged from stealth with $66 million in funding.\nThe company was founded by Zohar Alon, co-founder of cloud security company Dome9; Amihai Neiderman, founder of Nym; and Erez Yarkoni, former CIO of T-Mobile and Telstra.\nNewCore’s ambition is unusually large for a startup at launch: the company says it wants to compete directly with identity giants Microsoft and Okta by rebuilding identity security for the AI era.\nThe company argues that enterprises have accumulated fragmented identity systems that were designed around employees and applications, not autonomous agents.\nThe future, according to NewCore, requires a new approach that can manage access across humans, machines and AI systems.\nOasis Security, which was acquired by Cyera, focused specifically on what the industry calls non-human identities.\nThese include machine accounts, service accounts, applications and AI agents, identities that increasingly outnumber human users inside large organizations.\nBefore the acquisition, Oasis raised $120 million in a Series B round in March, targeting the growing challenge of securing machine identities as enterprises adopt more autonomous systems.\nThe company argued that traditional identity tools were not designed for environments where software could independently access systems and perform tasks without direct human supervision.\nCyera’s $1 billion acquisition shows that the issue has moved beyond a niche security concern.\nThe deal suggests major cybersecurity companies view identity management for AI systems as a strategic capability that will shape the next generation of enterprise security.\nAnother major player emerging in the category is Oak, which raised $60 million in July.\nFounded by former Torq CEO Shai Morag and Tal Marom, Oak says it is building an AI-native identity operating system designed to manage employees, machines and AI agents from a single platform.\nThe company argues that existing identity infrastructure has become a patchwork of disconnected tools that cannot handle the complexity created by autonomous systems.\nThe challenge is not simply authentication.\nIt is governance.\nWho created an AI agent? What data can it access? Which decisions can it make? How can an organization revoke its permissions if it begins behaving unexpectedly?\nThose questions are becoming increasingly urgent as companies move AI from pilot projects into core operations.\nLinx Security raised $50 million in March and positioned itself as a company aiming to do for identity what Wiz did for cloud security.\nThe company argues that AI agents and non-human identities are creating a new layer of complexity that traditional security tools cannot handle.\nVenice, founded by Rotem Lurie, raised $25 million in February to replace static enterprise permissions with dynamic access controls.\nThe company’s premise is that AI systems require permissions that can adapt in real time based on context and risk.\nOther startups are targeting narrower parts of the problem:\n- Hush Security, founded by former Meta Networks executives, raised $30 million to secure the AI workforce.\n- Offroad emerged from stealth with $7 million to build an AI identity security team.\n- Tenet raised $6 million to protect autonomous AI agents accessing sensitive workflows.\n- Capsule Security raised $7 million to secure enterprise AI agents.\nTogether, these companies illustrate how a new cybersecurity category is taking shape around AI governance, identity and access control.","confidence":0.9,"diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","quality_bucket":"high","failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"quality_reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605,"usable_text_length":6176,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605}},"tags":[]},"fallback_formats":["markdown","json","html"],"actions":{"read":"/item/51549","export_markdown":"/api/items/51549/export?format=markdown","export_json":"/api/items/51549/export?format=json","diagnose":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl"},"formats":{"full":{"id":51549,"title":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground - calcalistech.com","url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","source":"calcalistech.com","author":null,"published_at":"2026-08-02T08:09:00+00:00","locale":"en","topic":"ai","tags":[],"excerpt":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems. As artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.","full_text":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems.\nAs artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.\nA wave of Israeli startups founded by veterans of some of the country’s biggest cybersecurity successes is racing to build the identity infrastructure for the AI era. Their argument is that existing identity systems were designed for a world of human employees accessing applications. They were not built for a future where thousands of AI agents, software bots and autonomous systems can access sensitive corporate data, execute workflows and make decisions on behalf of organizations.\nThe market is attracting significant investor attention. During 2026, Israeli startups focused on identity, access management and AI security have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, while major cybersecurity companies are beginning to consolidate around the opportunity.\nThe clearest sign yet came when Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Cyera acquired Oasis Security in a deal valued at $1 billion. The acquisition marked one of the largest transactions in Israel’s cybersecurity market and highlighted the growing importance of securing non-human identities - the software agents, machines and autonomous systems expected to become increasingly common inside enterprises.\nFor decades, identity security was built around a relatively simple question: who is accessing a system?\nCompanies invested billions of dollars in tools that authenticate employees, manage permissions and prevent unauthorized access. But the rise of AI agents is changing the equation.\nAn AI system may need access to dozens or hundreds of applications to complete tasks. It may analyze financial data, modify code, communicate with customers or make operational decisions. Unlike a human employee, however, it can operate continuously and at massive scale.\nThat creates a new security challenge.\nCompanies need to know not only whether an AI agent is authorized to access a system, but whether it should be allowed to perform a specific action at a specific moment.\nIsraeli startups entering the market believe existing identity platforms were not designed for this world.\nOne of the largest statements came in June, when NewCore emerged from stealth with $66 million in funding.\nThe company was founded by Zohar Alon, co-founder of cloud security company Dome9; Amihai Neiderman, founder of Nym; and Erez Yarkoni, former CIO of T-Mobile and Telstra.\nNewCore’s ambition is unusually large for a startup at launch: the company says it wants to compete directly with identity giants Microsoft and Okta by rebuilding identity security for the AI era.\nThe company argues that enterprises have accumulated fragmented identity systems that were designed around employees and applications, not autonomous agents.\nThe future, according to NewCore, requires a new approach that can manage access across humans, machines and AI systems.\nOasis Security, which was acquired by Cyera, focused specifically on what the industry calls non-human identities.\nThese include machine accounts, service accounts, applications and AI agents, identities that increasingly outnumber human users inside large organizations.\nBefore the acquisition, Oasis raised $120 million in a Series B round in March, targeting the growing challenge of securing machine identities as enterprises adopt more autonomous systems.\nThe company argued that traditional identity tools were not designed for environments where software could independently access systems and perform tasks without direct human supervision.\nCyera’s $1 billion acquisition shows that the issue has moved beyond a niche security concern.\nThe deal suggests major cybersecurity companies view identity management for AI systems as a strategic capability that will shape the next generation of enterprise security.\nAnother major player emerging in the category is Oak, which raised $60 million in July.\nFounded by former Torq CEO Shai Morag and Tal Marom, Oak says it is building an AI-native identity operating system designed to manage employees, machines and AI agents from a single platform.\nThe company argues that existing identity infrastructure has become a patchwork of disconnected tools that cannot handle the complexity created by autonomous systems.\nThe challenge is not simply authentication.\nIt is governance.\nWho created an AI agent? What data can it access? Which decisions can it make? How can an organization revoke its permissions if it begins behaving unexpectedly?\nThose questions are becoming increasingly urgent as companies move AI from pilot projects into core operations.\nLinx Security raised $50 million in March and positioned itself as a company aiming to do for identity what Wiz did for cloud security.\nThe company argues that AI agents and non-human identities are creating a new layer of complexity that traditional security tools cannot handle.\nVenice, founded by Rotem Lurie, raised $25 million in February to replace static enterprise permissions with dynamic access controls.\nThe company’s premise is that AI systems require permissions that can adapt in real time based on context and risk.\nOther startups are targeting narrower parts of the problem:\n- Hush Security, founded by former Meta Networks executives, raised $30 million to secure the AI workforce.\n- Offroad emerged from stealth with $7 million to build an AI identity security team.\n- Tenet raised $6 million to protect autonomous AI agents accessing sensitive workflows.\n- Capsule Security raised $7 million to secure enterprise AI agents.\nTogether, these companies illustrate how a new cybersecurity category is taking shape around AI governance, identity and access control.","reading_time_min":5,"extraction":{"state":"ok","confidence":0.9,"error":null,"explanation":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605,"usable_text_length":6176,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605}}},"quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605,"usable_text_length":6176,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605}},"actions":{"read":"/item/51549","export_markdown":"/api/items/51549/export?format=markdown","export_json":"/api/items/51549/export?format=json","diagnose":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl"}},"digest":{"id":51549,"title":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground - calcalistech.com","url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","source":"calcalistech.com","topic":"ai","published_at":"2026-08-02T08:09:00+00:00","excerpt":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground From NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate…","quality_bucket":"high","quality_reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","reading_time_min":5,"cluster_id":null},"card":{"display_title":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground - calcalistech.com","subtitle":"calcalistech.com · 2026-08-02","summary":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground From NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI…","badges":["quality:high"],"links":{"read":"/item/51549","original":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","diagnose":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl"},"quality_warning":null},"export":{"title":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground - calcalistech.com","url":"https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","summary":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems. As artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.","source":"calcalistech.com","date":"2026-08-02T08:09:00+00:00","content":"Israel’s cyber industry bets identity will become the next AI security battleground\nFrom NewCore and Oak to Cyera’s $1 billion acquisition of Oasis, Israeli cyber leaders are racing to secure a world where autonomous AI agents, not just employees, control access to corporate systems.\nAs artificial intelligence moves from experimental tools to autonomous systems capable of taking actions inside companies, Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneurs are betting that the next major security challenge will not be protecting networks from hackers, but controlling who, or what, is allowed to operate within them.\nA wave of Israeli startups founded by veterans of some of the country’s biggest cybersecurity successes is racing to build the identity infrastructure for the AI era. Their argument is that existing identity systems were designed for a world of human employees accessing applications. They were not built for a future where thousands of AI agents, software bots and autonomous systems can access sensitive corporate data, execute workflows and make decisions on behalf of organizations.\nThe market is attracting significant investor attention. During 2026, Israeli startups focused on identity, access management and AI security have raised hundreds of millions of dollars, while major cybersecurity companies are beginning to consolidate around the opportunity.\nThe clearest sign yet came when Israeli cybersecurity unicorn Cyera acquired Oasis Security in a deal valued at $1 billion. The acquisition marked one of the largest transactions in Israel’s cybersecurity market and highlighted the growing importance of securing non-human identities - the software agents, machines and autonomous systems expected to become increasingly common inside enterprises.\nFor decades, identity security was built around a relatively simple question: who is accessing a system?\nCompanies invested billions of dollars in tools that authenticate employees, manage permissions and prevent unauthorized access. But the rise of AI agents is changing the equation.\nAn AI system may need access to dozens or hundreds of applications to complete tasks. It may analyze financial data, modify code, communicate with customers or make operational decisions. Unlike a human employee, however, it can operate continuously and at massive scale.\nThat creates a new security challenge.\nCompanies need to know not only whether an AI agent is authorized to access a system, but whether it should be allowed to perform a specific action at a specific moment.\nIsraeli startups entering the market believe existing identity platforms were not designed for this world.\nOne of the largest statements came in June, when NewCore emerged from stealth with $66 million in funding.\nThe company was founded by Zohar Alon, co-founder of cloud security company Dome9; Amihai Neiderman, founder of Nym; and Erez Yarkoni, former CIO of T-Mobile and Telstra.\nNewCore’s ambition is unusually large for a startup at launch: the company says it wants to compete directly with identity giants Microsoft and Okta by rebuilding identity security for the AI era.\nThe company argues that enterprises have accumulated fragmented identity systems that were designed around employees and applications, not autonomous agents.\nThe future, according to NewCore, requires a new approach that can manage access across humans, machines and AI systems.\nOasis Security, which was acquired by Cyera, focused specifically on what the industry calls non-human identities.\nThese include machine accounts, service accounts, applications and AI agents, identities that increasingly outnumber human users inside large organizations.\nBefore the acquisition, Oasis raised $120 million in a Series B round in March, targeting the growing challenge of securing machine identities as enterprises adopt more autonomous systems.\nThe company argued that traditional identity tools were not designed for environments where software could independently access systems and perform tasks without direct human supervision.\nCyera’s $1 billion acquisition shows that the issue has moved beyond a niche security concern.\nThe deal suggests major cybersecurity companies view identity management for AI systems as a strategic capability that will shape the next generation of enterprise security.\nAnother major player emerging in the category is Oak, which raised $60 million in July.\nFounded by former Torq CEO Shai Morag and Tal Marom, Oak says it is building an AI-native identity operating system designed to manage employees, machines and AI agents from a single platform.\nThe company argues that existing identity infrastructure has become a patchwork of disconnected tools that cannot handle the complexity created by autonomous systems.\nThe challenge is not simply authentication.\nIt is governance.\nWho created an AI agent? What data can it access? Which decisions can it make? How can an organization revoke its permissions if it begins behaving unexpectedly?\nThose questions are becoming increasingly urgent as companies move AI from pilot projects into core operations.\nLinx Security raised $50 million in March and positioned itself as a company aiming to do for identity what Wiz did for cloud security.\nThe company argues that AI agents and non-human identities are creating a new layer of complexity that traditional security tools cannot handle.\nVenice, founded by Rotem Lurie, raised $25 million in February to replace static enterprise permissions with dynamic access controls.\nThe company’s premise is that AI systems require permissions that can adapt in real time based on context and risk.\nOther startups are targeting narrower parts of the problem:\n- Hush Security, founded by former Meta Networks executives, raised $30 million to secure the AI workforce.\n- Offroad emerged from stealth with $7 million to build an AI identity security team.\n- Tenet raised $6 million to protect autonomous AI agents accessing sensitive workflows.\n- Capsule Security raised $7 million to secure enterprise AI agents.\nTogether, these companies illustrate how a new cybersecurity category is taking shape around AI governance, identity and access control.","confidence":0.9,"diagnostics_url":"/api/diagnose?url=https%3A//www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/skxnyohbzl","quality_bucket":"high","failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"quality_reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","quality_profile":{"profile_version":"extraction_quality.v2","bucket":"high","confidence":0.9,"failure_kind":"none","retryable":false,"retry_after_attempts":0,"reason":"High confidence: full text extraction produced 6176 characters.","operator_guidance":{"severity":"ok","recommended_action":"trust_full_text","next_step":"Use the extracted full text as the primary article source.","operator_label":"Ready","can_retry":false,"can_use_summary":false,"diagnostics_required":false},"content_depth":{"contract_version":"content_depth.v1","category":"full_text","label":"Full text","has_full_text":true,"has_summary":true,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605,"usable_text_length":6176,"source_field":"content"},"legacy_collapsed":false,"signals":{"extract_state":"ok","extract_error":null,"extract_retries":0,"content_length":6176,"summary_length":605}},"tags":[],"format_contract_version":"news_item_formats.v1"}}}