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>>11642948
>>11642948
>>11643027
moar info:
According to our sources, Israel's former prime minister Ehud Barak has exited the cyber-intelligence consulting firm Toka, which announced it had raised $25m in early stage funding on 27 October. Barak, who co-founded Toka, has been busy preparing his political comeback in the run-up to the elections and has asked to be relieved of his duties within the company. After retiring from politics the first time round, Barak, a former officer of the Israeli special forces unit Sayeret Matkal, entered the Israeli cyber-intelligence sector, also co-founding the startup Paragon Solutions (IOL 842) and investing in the security firm Carbyne (formerly called Reporty - IOL 812). Toka, which picked up a flurry of international donor-financed cyber consulting contracts in Nigeria, Moldavia, Chile and other countries (IOL 863), raised the Series B funding from its historic investors - Eclipse Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Dell Technologies Capital, and Entrée Capital.
Paragon, Barak's new cyber baby
Ex-prime minister Ehud Barak has teamed with some former intelligence heavywights and an experienced hacker to launch Paragon Solutions, supporting its cyber-offensive portfolio.
The cyber-intelligence consulting firm Toka, which will be at the Israeli pavillion at the Milipol trade fair in Paris on November 19-22, can now count on the services of the startup Paragon Solutions, which was launched discreetly in June. Founded by Ehud Barak, who was also behind the launch of Toka (IOL 809), Paragon is headed by Ehud Schneorson, a former head of Unit 8200, Israel's answer to the NSA. Schneorson's second-in-command at Paragon is Idan Nurick, a former executive at the cybersecurity-focused venture capital firm Team 8, which is headed by former Unit 8200 chief Nadav Zafrir (IOL 824, IOL 789).
Schneorson and Nurick are also on the board of the cyber-threat artificial intelligence firm Hunters, and both were previously on the advisory board of Blumberg Capital (IOL 832).
Paragon, which is based in Tel Aviv, employs the cyber-secuirity researcher Igor Bogudlov. A former program director of an Israel Defense Force's (IDF) cyber-research group and a cyber-intrusion expert, Bogudlov used to work for the interception firm Gita Technologies, a subsidiary of Verint. He was on the Pasten hacking team, which won a number of international hacking competitions including Google's Capture the Flag 2019.
https://www.intelligenceonline.com/surveillance–interception/2019/11/19/paragon-barak-s-new-cyber-baby,108382440-art