Israeli Intelligence 'Veterans' in US High Tech

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By Thomas Neuburger

“As of June 2025, over 1,400 veterans of Israeli intelligence are now working in U.S. tech.” —Murtaza Hussein

In an earlier piece, I looked at spying by Israel on the U.S. In it I quoted this exchange between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz:

Tucker Carlson: Do they (Israel) spy domestically on the United States?Sen. Ted Cruz: Oh, they probably do.

Oh, they do indeed, as the rest of the piece shows. Read it here.

Now my new favorite news agency, Drop Site News, has quite a bit more. Seems someone has compiled a database of “ex” Israeli intelligence agents and employees who work in U.S. high tech. The piece, titled “Hundreds of Former Israeli Spies Are Working in Big Tech, Database Shows,” is substantial, and I’m including substantial portions below. Do read the rest if this subject interests you.

A few notes up front from editorial me:

1. There are no “former” Israeli intelligence agents

If you were once employed by Israel doing intelligence work, you’re still in the game. Unless you’re retired by a lake, you’re doing the work. Just as AIPAC-funded Senators and Representatives are serving two masters, if you’re “ex”-Unit 8200 and a Microsoft big, you’re also serving two masters. There’s no reason to think otherwise.

2. Pay attention to how extensive this network is.

These people are like a cancer metastasized. That’s the plan — to be everywhere — and they’re executing it.

3. Unit 8200 is the real deal.

Alan MacLeod calls Unit 8200 “the centerpiece of Israel's hi-tech global spying, hacking, and cyberwarfare apparatus.” Take each of those words to heart: spying, hacking, warfare. For more, see here and here.

4. If Gaza is a genocide, time for a Nuremberg Project?

Maybe not now, but don’t be surprised if the subject comes up later. There are interested parties. Just saying.

Below is the first part of the Drop Site News piece (emphasis mine).

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Hundreds of Former Israeli Spies Are Working in Big Tech, Database Shows

A $25 billion deal is the latest acquisition to strengthen the link between the U.S. tech sector and Israeli intelligence.

by Murtaza Hussein

In late July, the U.S. cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks (PANW) announced that it had acquired the Israeli identity management and information security firm CyberArk, paying a staggering $25 billion dollars worth of cash and stock to purchase the firm. In addition to potentially injecting billions of dollars into the Israeli economy, Palo Alto Networks’ acquisition of CyberArk further strengthens the relationship between Silicon Valley and Israel’s security-intelligence apparatus.

Palo Alto is one of the world’s largest cybersecurity firms, and provides infrastructure protection, firewalls, and cloud security services to tens of thousands of companies internationally. Udi Mokady, CyberArk’s founder and executive chairman, is an alum of Unit 8200, the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate’s elite signals intelligence division. So are the four co-founders of Wiz: the Israeli cloud computing firm recently bought by Google for $32 billion. So, too, is Palo Alto’s Founder and Chief Technology Officer Nir Zuk.

Palo Alto has expanded through a spree of high-profile acquisitions over the past decade, paying sometimes up to billions of dollars for startups aimed at expanding its cybersecurity offerings. Nearly half of these have involved companies with origins in Israeli intelligence, raising concerns about access to the vast amounts of data around the world that the company is charged with protecting. Palo Alto Networks did not respond to Drop Site’s request for comment.

Some of these purchased firms—LightCyber, Dig Security, Talon Cybersecurity, Secdo, and Bridgecrew—were founded and led by publicly identified Unit 8200 veterans. Other major acquisitions include Cyvera, Twistlock, and Puresec, whose founders also come from the Israeli Defense Forces’s “cyber, intelligence, and commando units.”

“These acquisitions are a way to take people from Unit 8200 in Israel, and bring them into influential positions in the U.S. tech industry,” said Paul Biggar, founder of the tech startups CircleCI and Darklang and head of the activist group Tech for Palestine. “These companies handle their customers' customer data. If you are a bank, and you are using Palo Alto Networks, the data about all your customers, and their transactions, are passing through servers that are controlled by spies, or former spies.”

As of June 2025, over 1,400 veterans of Israeli intelligence are now working in U.S. tech—with 900 of those coming from Unit 8200 alone. That number comes from a database of people who publicly identify themselves as being both former Israeli intelligence officers and holding a job in U.S. tech on their LinkedIn profiles.

The database was assembled by an independent researcher, who is remaining anonymous for personal security and has dubbed the database the “Eagle Mission” influence network. The 1,400 people are self-identified veterans or active reserve members of Unit 8200, Israeli military intelligence, and the IDF Cyber Defense Directorate working in senior and mid-level engineering and security roles at major U.S. tech firms with offices in Israel, the U.S., and Europe. Drop Site crosschecked many of the records in the database for accuracy.

“This does not mean that every person who served in Unit 8200 is an Israeli spy looking to send classified data back to Tel Aviv,” the researcher emphasized. “But it does create a serious vulnerability. No other country has this kind of access to the American tech sector. We obsess over Chinese involvement in the tech industry and worry about corporate espionage, but Israeli penetration rarely gets mentioned.”

The global tech giant Microsoft is one of the most prominent employers of Unit 8200 alumni, employing roughly 250 veterans of the unit, alongside other major multinational companies including Nvidia, Meta, Google, Intel, and Apple, many of whom employ dozens of individuals drawn from the unit. Microsoft was recently revealed to have closely collaborated with Unit 8200 leadership on the creation of cloud services intended to store millions of private communications of Palestinians living under military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. Microsoft declined to comment.

While the CyberArk acquisition deal drew criticism from some investment analysts due to the seemingly disproportionate price tag—with shares of Palo Alto Networks declining in the immediate aftermath—the intelligence ties were not mentioned in public statements about the acquisition. …

[Continued here]

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