Check Point to acquire Cyclops and Cyata in strategic Israeli cyber push

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rjnbhfipwl

Publish Date: 2026-02-12 04:28:00

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Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points. Israeli cybersecurity giant Check Point is poised to expand its domestic footprint with a string of acquisitions targeting early-stage startups in the country’s thriving cyber ecosystem. Among the first targets are Cyclops Security and Cyata, two emerging companies tackling distinct challenges in enterprise security.Cyclops has developed a generative AI-powered platform designed to answer complex cybersecurity questions across an organization’s stack without the need for deep forensics or SIEM expertise. Founded by cybersecurity veterans Eran Zilberman, Elay Gueta, and Biran Franco, Cyclops raised $6.4 million in Seed funding in July 2023 from investors including Merlin Ventures, Insight Partners, Tal Ventures, and CrowdStrike’s Falcon Fund.The platform is built on a cybersecurity mesh architecture and allows security teams to query their environment using natural language, returning actionable insights on vulnerabilities, incidents, and governance, risk, and compliance scenarios. Zilberman and his co-founders bring extensive experience from both the private sector and Israel’s national security apparatus. Zilberman has held senior roles at RSA and We Ankor, while Gueta served in the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel and in the IDF’s cyber units, and Franco previously led product management at Axonius, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, and SentinelOne.Meanwhile, Cyata, which emerged from stealth with $8.5 million in Seed funding led by TLV Partners last July, focuses on a new but growing vulnerability: unsupervised AI agents operating across enterprise environments. These agents, task-driven bots, copilots, and chatbots, can autonomously execute code, query sensitive data, and initiate workflows, often outside conventional identity frameworks.“AI agents represent the biggest leap in enterprise technology since the cloud,” said Cyata CEO and co-founder Shahar Tal, a former senior executive at Cellebrite and Check Point, who founded the company with CTO Baruch Weizman and VP R&D Dror Roth, both former leaders in Israeli cyber units and commercial security labs. “They act autonomously and at scale, yet no one is watching what they do. Cyata changes that.” The startup’s platform maps AI agents to human owners, continuously assesses risk, tracks activity with a forensic layer, and applies just-in-time access controls.