Ex-NSO Chief Shaiulio Launches AI Defense Firm, Sees Past as Asset
Translated & summarized from Maariv by baba
Shaiulio, former CEO of NSO Group, has launched Dream, a new company valued at $3 billion, offering AI cybersecurity tools for governments. He advocates for national AI independence, warning against reliance on foreign tech giants. Dream's products aim to protect critical infrastructure and data, leveraging Shaiulio's controversial past experience with NSO's Pegasus spyware as an advantage. The company has secured deals with over a dozen countries, emphasizing trust and security in its government partnerships.
The story in 5 lines · by baba
- Former NSO CEO Shaiulio launched AI defense firm Dream, valued at $3 billion.
- Dream offers governments AI tools for cybersecurity and data utilization.
- Shaiulio sees his past experience with NSO's Pegasus spyware as a significant advantage.
- The company warns against government reliance on American tech giants for AI.
- Dream has secured deals with over a dozen countries for its cybersecurity solutions.
Shaiulio, the former co-founder and CEO of Israeli spyware firm NSO Group, has launched a new company called Dream, which develops AI-powered cybersecurity tools for governments. In an interview with the Financial Times, Shaiulio, 45, warned against governments' reliance on American tech giants, advocating for independent AI infrastructure. Dream, already valued at $3 billion, offers governments tools to protect and utilize their sensitive data through customized AI systems.
Despite facing international criticism for NSO's Pegasus spyware, Shaiulio expressed no regret, viewing his past experience in selling surveillance technology to governments as a significant advantage for his new venture. He claimed NSO's products have helped governments prevent terrorist attacks and save lives. His new company's first product, Sphere, is a national-scale cybersecurity defense system using AI to protect critical infrastructure. Another product, Hero, autonomously identifies and fixes software vulnerabilities. Dream researchers recently identified what they described as the first fully autonomous cyberattack against a government target, occurring three and a half years after Shaiulio predicted it would take five.
Dream's vision extends to sovereign AI, with its third product, Atlas, a platform enabling governments to develop and operate dedicated AI models on their own infrastructure, independent of external cloud providers. Unlike general-purpose models like ChatGPT, Atlas is tailored to specific government tasks, such as analyzing classified intelligence or improving procurement processes, offering lower operating costs and greater precision. Shaiulio emphasized that governments need narrow, highly intelligent models that can run efficiently on minimal hardware.
Shaiulio left NSO in 2022 after a decade, following controversies including the 2019 revelation that NSO exploited a WhatsApp vulnerability to install Pegasus. NSO was later blacklisted by the U.S. government and lost a lawsuit to WhatsApp. However, Shaiulio believes his past relationships with governments are a key asset for Dream, which has around 350 employees and offices in Tel Aviv, Vienna, and Abu Dhabi. The company has sold its solutions to over a dozen countries, including eight in Europe, five in Asia, and two in the Middle East, with its sovereign AI product implemented in two nations. Shaiulio stated that trust and security, built through past relationships, are Dream's primary offerings, even before the technology itself.