{"id":294252,"date":"2025-04-28T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=294252"},"modified":"2025-04-28T09:22:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T08:22:04","slug":"wiz-acquisition-puts-israeli-intelligence-in-charge-of-your-google-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/04\/wiz-acquisition-puts-israeli-intelligence-in-charge-of-your-google-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Wiz Acquisition Puts Israeli Intelligence In Charge of Your Google Data"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 Apr 2025 –<\/em> Google recently announced<\/a>\u00a0it would acquire Israeli-American cloud security firm Wiz for $32 billion. The price tag \u2014 65 times Wiz\u2019s annual revenue \u2014 has raised eyebrows and further solidified the close relationship between Google and the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

In its press release, the Silicon Valley giant\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0that the purchase will \u201cvastly improve how security is designed, operated and automated\u2014providing an end-to-end security platform for customers, of all types and sizes, in the AI era.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet it has also\u00a0raised fears<\/a>\u00a0about the security of user data, particularly of those who oppose Israeli actions against its neighbors, given Unit 8200\u2019s long history of using tech to spy on opponents, gather intelligence, and use that knowledge for extortion and blackmail.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s Global Spy Network<\/h3>\n

Wiz was established only five years ago, and all four co-founders \u2014 Yinon Costica, Assaf Rappaport, Ami Luttwak, and Roy Reznik \u2014 were leaders in Israel\u2019s elite military intelligence unit, Unit 8200. Like many Israeli tech companies, Wiz is a direct outgrowth of the military intelligence outfit. A recent\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0found that almost fifty of its current employees are Unit 8200 veterans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat experience showed me the impact you can make when you combine great talent with amazing technology,\u201d Rappaport\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0of his time in the military.<\/p>\n

Former Unit 8200 agents, working hand-in-glove with the Israeli national security state, have gone on to produce many of the world\u2019s most infamous malware and hacking tools.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most well-known of these is Pegasus, spyware used by governments around the world to surveil and harass political opponents. These\u00a0include<\/a>\u00a0India, Kazakhstan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, the latter of which used the tool to spy on Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in T\u00fcrkiye.<\/p>\n

In total, more than 50,000 journalists, human rights defenders, diplomats, business leaders and politicians are known to have been secretly surveilled. That includes heads of state such as French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Iraqi President Barham Salih. All Pegasus sales had to be\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0by the Israeli government, which reportedly had access to the data Pegasus\u2019 foreign customers were accruing.<\/p>\n

Unit 8200 also spies on Americans. Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the National Security Agency regularly shared the data and communications of U.S. citizens with the Israeli intelligence group. \u201cI think that\u2019s amazing\u2026It\u2019s one of the biggest abuses we\u2019ve seen,\u201d he\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the Israeli government, the utility of these private spying firms filled with former IDF intelligence figures is that it allows it some measure of plausible deniability when confronted with spying attacks. As Haaretz\u00a0explained<\/a>: \u201cWho owns [these spying companies] isn\u2019t clear, but their employees aren\u2019t soldiers. Consequently, they may solve the army\u2019s problem, even if the solution they provide is imperfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, former Unit 8200 agents not only create much of the world\u2019s spyware, but also the security features that claim to protect against unwanted surveillance. A MintPress\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0found that three of the six largest VPN companies in the world are owned and controlled by an Israeli company co-founded by a Unit 8200 veteran.<\/p>\n

How Unit 8200 Controls Palestinians<\/h3>\n

It is in Palestine, however, that Unit 8200 has been most active. The unit serves as the centerpiece of Israel\u2019s hi-tech repressive state apparatus. Using gigantic amounts of data compiled on Palestinians by tracking their every move through facial recognition cameras, monitoring their calls, messages, emails and personal data, Unit 8200 has created a digital dragnet that it uses to snoop on, harass, and suppress Palestinians.<\/p>\n

It\u00a0compiles<\/a>\u00a0dossiers on virtually every Gaza resident, including their medical history, sex lives, and search histories, so that this information can be used for extortion or blackmail later. If, for example, an individual is cheating on their spouse, desperately needs a medical operation, or is secretly homosexual, this can be used as leverage to turn civilians into informants and spies for Israel.<\/p>\n

One former Unit 8200 operative\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words for \u201cgay\u201d so that he could listen for them in phone conversations he was eavesdropping on.<\/p>\n

Unit 8200 is also reportedly behind the even more controversial\u00a0Project Lavender<\/a>, a giant, AI-generated kill list of tens of thousands of Gazans that the IDF uses to target the densely populated strip\u2019s civilian population.<\/p>\n

Every Gazan (including children) is assigned a score of 1-100, based on their perceived proximity to Hamas. A wide range of characteristics will increase an individual\u2019s score, including living or working in the same building or being in a WhatsApp group with a known or suspected Hamas member.<\/p>\n

If a person\u2019s number reaches a certain threshold, they are automatically added to a Unit 8200 kill list. This, one IDF commander\u00a0explained<\/a>, solved Israel\u2019s perennial targeting \u201chuman bottleneck,\u201d allowing them to carry out tens of thousands of strikes into Gaza during the first few weeks of the post-October 7 attack alone.<\/p>\n

Unit 8200 is also widely reported to have carried out the Lebanon Pager Attack, exploding thousands of electronic devices at the same time, killing dozens and injuring thousands more. The operation was widely\u00a0described<\/a>, even by former CIA director Leon Panetta, as an act of terrorism.<\/p>\n

This long history of violence, skulduggery, and spying raises troubling questions about whether a corporation founded and staffed by dozens of individuals from such an organization can be trusted with billions of users\u2019 private and personal data.<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s Ties to Israeli Intelligence<\/h3>\n

Google\u2019s purchase of Wiz deepens its already close ties to Unit 8200. In 2013, the tech giant acquired Waze, an online maps service founded by three Unit 8200 veterans, for $1.3 billion. It has also directly hired dozens of former spooks and spies to fill its ranks; a 2022 MintPress News\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0found at least 99 former Unit 8200 agents working at the Silicon Valley behemoth.<\/p>\n

Among these figures is Gavriel Goidel, Head of Strategy and Operations for Google Research. Goidel joined Google in 2022 after a six-year career in military intelligence, during which he rose to become Head of Learning at Unit 8200. There, he led a large team of operatives who sifted through intelligence data to \u201cunderstand patterns of hostile activists,\u201d according to his\u00a0own account<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Google is far from an outlier when it comes to hiring former Israeli spies to carry out its operations. Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon have all\u00a0hired<\/a>\u00a0a significant number of ex-Unit 8200 agents. Even TikTok, supposedly a hotbed of anti-Semitism,\u00a0employs<\/a>\u00a0a considerable number of ex-spooks. Perhaps most surprisingly, a number of top U.S. media outlets, including CNN and Axios, have\u00a0recruited<\/a>\u00a0former Unit 8200 spies and analysts to write and produce America\u2019s news about the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Google has invested heavily in Israel, first opening offices there in 2006. Longtime CEO Eric Schmidt is known to be a vocal supporter of the controversial state. In a 2012 meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cthe decision to invest in Israel was one of the best that Google has ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Wiz deal is undoubtedly the company\u2019s biggest Israeli investment yet. The all-cash acquisition represents a massive injection of money into Israel\u2019s flailing and war-weary economy, equivalent to 0.6% of the country\u2019s GDP. The money, the Israeli press excitedly\u00a0reports<\/a>, will allow the government to continue without enacting major austerity measures, reduce the nation\u2019s deficit, and enable Israel to continue on a wartime footing for longer. As such, it represents a move critics say amounts to a financial intervention on behalf of Israel. Moreover, it also sends a message to the rest of the business world to invest in the country, boosting investor sentiment at a time when it is most needed.<\/p>\n

The size of the deal also surprised many. The price is similar to that of the sale of JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo in 2008, Visa Europe in 2017, and Twitter in 2022. Yet Wiz is a new and relatively unknown company, raising questions about its valuation.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, though, these considerations are secondary to the main issue that such a group will now be charged with providing security for the data of billions of users worldwide. Given Unit 8200\u2019s role in monitoring and targeting the Palestinian population, many will be wondering if, going forward, Google products are at all safe to use.<\/p>\n

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Alan MacLeod<\/h2>\n

Alan MacLeod<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>is Senior Staff Writer for\u00a0MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books:\u00a0Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent<\/a>,\u00a0as well as\u00a0a<\/a>\u00a0number<\/a>\u00a0of<\/a>\u00a0academic<\/a>\u00a0articles<\/a>.\u00a0He has also contributed to\u00a0FAIR.org<\/a>,\u00a0The Guardian<\/a>,\u00a0Salon<\/a>,\u00a0The Grayzone<\/a>,\u00a0Jacobin Magazine<\/a>,\u00a0and\u00a0Common Dreams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – consortiumnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24 Apr 2025 – Google recently announced\u00a0it would acquire Israeli-American cloud security firm Wiz for $32 billion. The price tag \u2014 65 times Wiz\u2019s annual revenue \u2014 has raised eyebrows and further solidified the close relationship between Google and the Israeli military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":294253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[232,504,88,767,1025,886],"class_list":["post-294252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-focus","tag-capitalism","tag-international-relations","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-west-bank","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294252"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":294350,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294252\/revisions\/294350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}