Cybersecurity has always been a concern, but with the advent of AI, cyberattacks can become even more sophisticated, leaving many businesses vulnerable to all sorts of threats.
Cato Networks Co-Founder and CEO Shlomo Kramer joins Asking For A Trend to discuss the state of cybersecurity and what investors need to know.
Shlomo emphasizes the importance of advanced cybersecurity: “We live in a very digital world where everyone is connected and everyone is a target.”
He explains how his company is leading the way: “It’s like an AWS [Amazon Web Services] service that takes the heavy lifting of devices on the network side and on the security side, and takes ownership and gives you the security result back. You just open up a console in the cloud. You have a cloud service and it delivers the network and the network security to you in a much more efficient way from an operational perspective, and a much more agile way from a business perspective.”
He continues, confirming: “I think we are the first and only company that has AI models in line to prevent attacks in real time, but AI will be extremely important in the future because the attackers will use AI. What was once a cyber soldier, very well trained, carrying out a very sophisticated attack, will now be industrialized on a large scale. The only way to protect us from that is AI.”
Watch the video above to hear what Kramer has to say about the possibility of an IPO.
For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Asking for a Trend
This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino
Video transcript
Schlomo Kramer is considered the godfather of Israeli cybersecurity. He co-founded Checkpoint and took the company public.
Co-founder Imperva also took that company public.
He was one of the first investors and board members of Palo Alto.
Networks wrote its first check in 2005, and now he leads Cato Networks, which recently announced a new financial milestone: achieving more than $200 million in annual recurring revenue by the second quarter of 2024. That’s a doubling of total revenue in less than two years.
Schlomo is with us now to tell us more about the current state of the cybersecurity market.
And what awaits us, Schlomo?
Thank you for coming.
Thank you for having me here.
So I want to start with, uh, Schlomo Big picture, because we’re in an interesting moment. You had, of course, the event of the mass strike.
You live in a world that is increasingly interconnected.
I’m curious, Slomo, what do you think about others from your perspective, as an experienced cybersecurity professional?
What it means for consumers and what it means for business.
What we see is that we live in a very digital world, where everyone is connected and everyone is a target.
It is not only the top of the pyramid of the largest corporations, it is also the biggest mess in the economy.
The 50% that is the goal, right?
Everyone is a target and today’s security is not aligned with this 50% because it is primarily based on point solutions that are expensive to integrate and difficult to support the new digital transformation of enterprises.
And there needs to be a new solution that serves the entire pyramid.
And that’s one of the next generation companies that sees the Wiz of the world in the cloud.
The crowd gathers at the finish line and Cato explains Cato’s solution.
What is your answer to this?
It’s like an A-service that takes the basic devices on the network side and on the security side, takes responsibility and gives you back the security results.
You just open up a console in the cloud, you have a cloud service and it provides you with the network and the network security in a much more efficient way from an operational perspective and in a much more flexible way from a business perspective.
When I talk to analysts, they say, Schlomo, that Cato does have competition.
They mention names like Cisco Palo Alto.
They’ll sell the ZZ scaler, right?
What is your competitive advantage in this sector that we invented in 2015?
We are still the only platform built from the ground up to serve this sassi space.
Sasi is a word that was coined by Gartner in 2019 to capture what we’ve built. All of our competitors, all the names you mentioned, Cisco, Cisco and all the devices and device aids, the plague is in the cloud, woke up one morning and saw the report that said, Hey, the future is Sassi.
They try to adapt their architecture to the sassi architecture.
But in a world where customer experience matters most, a platform built specifically for this function can make all the difference.
And who are your customers?
Can you give us a line of sight there?
Are they small businesses?
Are they large companies?
We actually started with medium to large enterprises and are now expanding the Fortune Five market to multiple Fortune 500 customers around the world.
As buying patterns in the market evolve, our solution is suitable for organizations of all sizes.
But if you have a very large organization, sometimes the procurement strategy for network security wants to make different decisions. That brings together not only the solution, but also the procurement strategy of the organization.
We see this happening in increasingly larger organizations.
Another problem, a topic I would like you to address.
Shlomo, this is a megatrend of an I.
We talk a lot.
What is interesting?
Of course, you see both good and bad people using AI tools.
What do you think about that?
So AI has been involved in what we’ve done from day one, because we have a massive data breach in the cloud that we can contain.
We are the first and only company.
I think there are models that can prevent attacks in real time.
But an I will be incredibly important in the future, because the attackers are going to use an I. What was once a cyber soldier was very well trained.
Carrying out a highly sophisticated attack will be industrialized and on a large scale these days. The only way to protect against this is through an I.
So AI will really become the center of security in the coming years.
We mentioned Sloma Ayori, who he co-founded and who took two companies public.
Do you want to make Cato public?
Cato will become the first platform-based security company, offering a broad platform-based solution that can be used in an affordable and flexible way by any type of organization.
And being public is part of the journey.
Do you have a timetable for that?
Do you think it’s this year or next year?
I can’t say anything about the timeline.
One of the reasons depends not only on the company, but also on the market and many other elements.
Let me ask you a question, Sloma, your headquarters are in Israel.
Given the ongoing war with Hamas, the escalating tensions with Hezbollah.
How have you all had to adapt to that?
That’s really awesome.
To see the resilience of the organization, we must first establish that we are a global organization, because we are a critical infrastructure.
From day one, we are focused on being redundant and highly available.
We have people from the Philippines to Colombia and all over the world providing and maintaining this service.
But it was really great to see the team in Israel, the resilience of that team and also the empathy of the employees outside of Israel. Not just employees, but also partners and customers.
We have received only positive feedback about this policy.
Finally, I would like to know how the Israeli economy and the Israeli tech community are doing right now.
I think the Israeli high-tech sector is doing well. Billions of acquisitions were made during the construction of the wall.
And we see continued investment and companies like Keto continue to thrive.
We are therefore absolutely optimistic about the future of the Israeli high-tech company Schlomo.
Thank you very much for your time today.
We appreciate it.
Thank you