TL;DR: As cybersecurity companies deploy AI systems with unprecedented access to sensitive data, a complex web of foreign investment, geopolitical positioning, and executive leadership creates new national security risks. From Israeli-funded AI platforms processing your data to executives taking geopolitical stances on Ukraine-Russia while their AI “brains” have kernel-level access to critical infrastructure, the cybersecurity industry has become a geopolitical minefield with systemic implications. [

The All-Seeing AI: How Cybersecurity Companies’ AI Systems Access Your Most Sensitive Data

TL;DR: From Zscaler to Cloudflare, Microsoft to Google, cybersecurity companies are deploying AI systems with unprecedented access to organizations’ most sensitive data—including cleartext passwords, SSL certificates, private keys, SOC logs, and NOC data. While marketed as security enhancements, these AI-powered systems create new systemic risks that few organizations

Security Careers HelpSecurity Careers

](https://securitycareers.help/the-all-seeing-ai-how-cybersecurity-companies-ai-systems-access-your-most-sensitive-data/)

The New Cybersecurity Cold War

The cybersecurity industry has transformed from a technical necessity into a geopolitical battlefield where AI-powered systems with deep data access are controlled by companies funded by foreign capital, led by executives with explicit geopolitical stances, and deployed in the most sensitive national infrastructure. The recent CrowdStrike outage—which brought down 8.5 million systems worldwide through kernel-level access—was just a preview of the systemic risks when cybersecurity becomes geopoliticized.

This convergence of AI surveillance capabilities, foreign investment patterns, and geopolitical positioning creates unprecedented questions: What happens when your cybersecurity vendor’s AI system has access to your organization’s most sensitive data, but the company is funded by foreign capital and led by executives who take explicit stances in international conflicts? The answer is reshaping how nations think about cybersecurity sovereignty.

The Israeli Cybersecurity Investment Boom

Israel has emerged as the dominant force in global cybersecurity, with Israeli cybersecurity companies attracting funding equivalent to 40% of the entire U.S. cyber market in 2024, despite comprising just 7% of Israel’s tech ecosystem by company count. This concentration isn’t accidental—it’s the result of a systematic approach combining military intelligence training, government support, and massive foreign investment.

The numbers are staggering: Israeli cybersecurity companies raised $4 billion in 2024 across 89 funding rounds, compared with $1.89 billion raised in 2023 via 71 funding deals. More concerning from a geopolitical perspective, the vast majority of capital pouring into Israeli cybersecurity was primarily funded by overseas investors, including major U.S. venture capital firms.

The NSO-Dream Security Pipeline

The most striking example of how geopolitical positioning intertwines with cybersecurity capabilities is the journey from NSO Group to Dream Security. Months after stepping down as CEO of NSO Group, the embattled cyber espionage firm, Shalev Hulio linked up with former chancellor of Austria Sebastian Kurz to establish Dream Security, a cybersecurity startup defending critical infrastructure sites.

This isn’t just a career transition—it’s a geopolitical realignment. Dream Security has generated more than $130 million in annual sales in 2024 by selling its platform to governments and national cybersecurity organizations, and the startup raised funding with participants including Abu Dhabi-based Tau Capital.

The implications are profound: the former CEO of a company that created surveillance technology used against dissidents and journalists has now partnered with a scandal-plagued former Austrian chancellor to create AI systems that protect “critical infrastructure” with funding from Middle Eastern capital. Dream Security’s AI security platform is designed to “think like both a defender and an attacker” to help industrial companies and governments protect critical infrastructure.

The Geopolitical Stance Problem

Unlike traditional technology companies that maintained political neutrality, modern cybersecurity executives are increasingly taking explicit geopolitical positions—often while their AI systems maintain unprecedented access to sensitive organizational data.

Ukraine-Russia War Positioning

The ongoing conflict has created a stark dividing line in the cybersecurity industry. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office declared Recorded Future “undesirable,” accusing it of participating in propaganda campaigns and cyberattacks against Moscow, while Recorded Future said it “invested more than $20 million in aid” to Ukraine in 2023.

This positioning isn’t limited to rhetoric. FBI, CISA, and NSA assess that cyber actors affiliated with the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate are responsible for computer network operations against global targets for espionage, sabotage, and reputational harm. Meanwhile, since 2022, Western logistics entities and IT companies have faced an elevated risk of targeting by the Russian General Staff, particularly those involved in coordination, transport, and delivery of foreign assistance to Ukraine.

For organizations, this creates an impossible choice: deploying cybersecurity systems from companies that have explicitly chosen sides in geopolitical conflicts, knowing those same systems have comprehensive access to organizational data and can potentially be influenced by their vendors’ political positions.

The CrowdStrike Kernel Access Reality Check

The July 2024 CrowdStrike outage demonstrated the practical implications of giving foreign-influenced cybersecurity companies unprecedented access to critical systems. CrowdStrike distributed a faulty configuration update that caused roughly 8.5 million systems to crash worldwide, affecting airlines, airports, banks, hotels, hospitals, manufacturing, stock markets, and governmental services.

This wasn’t just a technical failure—it was a geopolitical vulnerability exposed. CrowdStrike’s Falcon monitoring product operates at kernel level, which means it has extremely deep access within the operating system, granting full access to all critical system functions. When that level of access is combined with geopolitical positioning and foreign investment, it creates systemic national security risks.

Falcon hooks into the Microsoft Windows OS as a Windows kernel process with high privileges, giving Falcon the ability to monitor operations in real time across the OS. Imagine if such a system, instead of accidentally crashing due to a software bug, were deliberately programmed to act based on geopolitical directives from foreign investors or government pressures.

The Foreign Investment Web

The cybersecurity industry’s foreign investment patterns create complex dependency relationships that traditional security frameworks don’t address. Israeli companies are often seen as more battle-tested both technically and operationally, with strategic funding flows from both global VCs and multinationals seeking proximity to next-generation tech.

But this “battle-tested” reputation comes with geopolitical baggage. About a fifth of Dream Security’s employees previously worked at NSO Group, including CEO Shalev Hulio and a raft of top executives. The company has offices in Tel Aviv with offices in Vienna and Abu Dhabi, creating a geopolitical triangle that spans different national jurisdictions and potential conflicts of interest.

The Investment-Influence Pipeline

The path from foreign investment to potential influence is more direct than most organizations realize:

  1. Capital Dependency: Global venture capital firms, including Sequoia, Greylock, Battery Ventures, and General Catalyst, doubled down on investments in Israeli cyber startups
  2. Geopolitical Positioning: Companies funded by foreign capital increasingly take explicit stances on international conflicts
  3. Data Access: These same companies deploy AI systems with comprehensive access to organizational data
  4. Systemic Risk: The combination creates potential for geopolitical influence over critical data and infrastructure

The AI Brain in Foreign Hands

The intersection of AI capabilities, foreign investment, and geopolitical positioning creates what we call the “AI brain” problem. Modern cybersecurity platforms don’t just protect data—they analyze, correlate, and learn from it using AI systems that may be controlled by foreign-funded entities with explicit geopolitical positions.

Consider the implications:

  • Israeli cybersecurity companies with AI systems processing U.S. corporate data while taking positions on Middle Eastern conflicts
  • European cybersecurity firms with AI capabilities funded by foreign capital while executives take stances on Ukraine-Russia
  • U.S. cybersecurity platforms with foreign investors deploying AI systems in critical infrastructure worldwide

The Dream Security Model

Dream Security’s AI security platform is designed to “think like both a defender and an attacker” to help industrial companies and governments protect critical infrastructure from both known and emerging generative cyber threats. This dual-capability approach—combined with the company’s NSO Group heritage and foreign investment—exemplifies the new geopolitical cybersecurity model.

Taking the helm of The Institute is the most recent step in Hulio’s makeover from being a public villain to becoming a cyberhero, founding an initiative at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University that aims to become an Israeli hub for training and research on artificial intelligence. The same individual who created surveillance technology for authoritarian regimes is now training the next generation of AI cybersecurity professionals. [

When Zero Trust Meets AI Training: The Zscaler GDPR Data Processing Controversy

TL;DR: Zscaler’s CEO boasted about training AI models on “half a trillion daily transactions” from customer logs, triggering GDPR concerns. Despite corporate damage control, fundamental questions remain about data processing transparency, legal bases, and whether cybersecurity vendors can transform from processors to controllers without explicit consent. The Spark That

Compliance Hub WikiCompliance Hub

](https://www.compliancehub.wiki/when-zero-trust-meets-ai-training-the-zscaler-gdpr-data-processing-controversy/)

The Systemic Risk Cascade

The convergence of foreign investment, geopolitical positioning, and AI-powered data access creates cascading systemic risks that traditional risk management frameworks don’t address:

National Security Implications

  • Data Sovereignty: AI systems funded by foreign capital processing sensitive national data
  • Infrastructure Vulnerability: Critical systems protected by companies with foreign investment and geopolitical positions
  • Intelligence Risks: Comprehensive organizational data accessible to AI systems controlled by geopolitically-positioned foreign entities

Economic Dependencies

Twenty percent of companies surveyed have sustained political risk-related losses in Russia or Ukraine, and 48 percent have done so in the BRICS countries. As cybersecurity becomes increasingly geopoliticized, these economic risks compound.

Operational Realities

Boards should be aware of cyber attacks even if they’re not targeted at US companies, as future spillovers are possible as the crisis continues to unfold. The interconnected nature of modern cybersecurity platforms means geopolitical conflicts in one region can create operational risks globally.

Case Studies in Geopolitical Cybersecurity Risk

Case Study 1: The Israeli AI Surveillance Pipeline

From NSO Group’s Pegasus to Dream Security’s infrastructure protection, the pathway shows how surveillance capabilities evolve and migrate across geopolitical boundaries. Dream’s lawyers told The Intercept that the “only overlap” between NSO and Dream were Hulio and former NSO employees, but other people tie NSO history and Dream’s present together.

The concern isn’t just about past activities—it’s about ongoing capabilities. All three companies—NSO, Dream, and IntelEye—support the Israeli government in its war effort, while processing data and protecting infrastructure for international clients.

Case Study 2: The CrowdStrike Kernel Vulnerability

The July 2024 outage demonstrated how foreign-influenced cybersecurity companies with kernel-level access can create systemic vulnerabilities. Microsoft estimates that 8.5 million Windows devices were affected worldwide by a single configuration file error from one company.

Now imagine if such access were used not accidentally but deliberately based on geopolitical directives. Kernel-level integrations can cause widespread system instability, complicated recovery processes, cascading failures, and complex recovery procedures.

Case Study 3: The European Defense Market

Hulio told Bloomberg he was leaving “the intelligence side, offensive side if you want, and move to the defensive side,” focusing on European markets “because I currently think that they have the biggest threats right now because of the geopolitical situation”.

This positioning shows how geopolitical conflicts create market opportunities for cybersecurity companies, while those same companies gain access to the most sensitive infrastructure data of the regions they’re “protecting.”

The New Compliance Challenge

Traditional compliance frameworks don’t address the geopolitical dimensions of modern cybersecurity. Organizations need new approaches to evaluate:

Vendor Geopolitical Risk Assessment

  • Foreign Investment Analysis: Understanding the national origins and geopolitical positions of major investors
  • Executive Positioning: Evaluating how leadership’s geopolitical stances might influence business decisions
  • Geographic Distribution: Assessing where data is processed and by which national entities
  • Conflict of Interest Evaluation: Understanding potential conflicts between vendor positions and organizational interests

Data Sovereignty Controls

  • AI Processing Location: Ensuring AI analysis of sensitive data occurs within acceptable jurisdictions
  • Foreign Access Limitations: Implementing technical controls to prevent foreign access to sensitive AI insights
  • Geopolitical Incident Response: Preparing for scenarios where vendor geopolitical positions create operational conflicts

Building Geopolitically-Aware Cybersecurity

Organizations must develop new frameworks that account for the geopolitical dimensions of cybersecurity:

Strategic Diversification

  • Multi-vendor Approaches: Avoiding dependency on cybersecurity vendors from any single geopolitical bloc
  • National Preference Programs: Prioritizing vendors with domestic investment and leadership when possible
  • Geographic Load Balancing: Distributing cybersecurity functions across different national jurisdictions

Operational Controls

  • AI Data Residency: Ensuring AI processing of sensitive data remains within national boundaries
  • Foreign Investment Monitoring: Tracking changes in vendor investment and ownership structures
  • Geopolitical Impact Assessment: Evaluating how international conflicts might affect vendor relationships

Regulatory Evolution

Policymakers must address the intersection of cybersecurity and geopolitics through:

  • Foreign Investment Review for cybersecurity acquisitions and major investments
  • Data Localization Requirements for AI processing of sensitive information
  • Geopolitical Risk Disclosure mandates for cybersecurity vendors
  • National Cybersecurity Sovereignty frameworks that address foreign influence

The Coming Cybersecurity Nationalism

The trends are clear: cybersecurity is becoming increasingly nationalistic and geopolitically positioned. Geopolitics is further amplifying the cyber stakes, with nation-state actors continuing to use digital operations to achieve strategic goals.

This creates a fundamental challenge for organizations: how to maintain cybersecurity effectiveness while managing geopolitical risks from vendors whose AI systems have unprecedented access to sensitive data.

The answer may require a new model of “cybersecurity sovereignty”—approaches that prioritize domestic cybersecurity capabilities and limit foreign influence over critical security infrastructure, even at the cost of potentially reduced technical capabilities.

Recommendations for Organizations

Immediate Actions

  1. Audit Current Vendors: Assess the foreign investment, leadership positioning, and geopolitical stances of current cybersecurity vendors
  2. Data Access Review: Understand exactly what data your cybersecurity AI systems can access and where it’s processed
  3. Geopolitical Risk Assessment: Evaluate how vendor geopolitical positions might conflict with organizational interests
  4. Diversification Planning: Develop strategies to reduce dependency on any single geopolitical bloc for cybersecurity services

Strategic Initiatives

  1. Domestic Capability Development: Invest in building internal cybersecurity capabilities to reduce foreign dependency
  2. Allied Partnership Programs: Develop cybersecurity relationships with vendors from allied nations with aligned interests
  3. Data Sovereignty Architecture: Implement technical controls to ensure sensitive data processing remains within acceptable jurisdictions
  4. Crisis Preparedness: Prepare contingency plans for scenarios where vendor geopolitical positions create operational conflicts

The Future of Geopolitical Cybersecurity

As AI-powered cybersecurity systems become more sophisticated and data access becomes more comprehensive, the geopolitical dimensions will only intensify. Organizations must prepare for a future where:

  • Cybersecurity vendor neutrality becomes impossible to maintain
  • National cybersecurity capabilities become strategic necessities rather than preferences
  • Data sovereignty requirements become mandatory rather than optional
  • Geopolitical risk becomes a primary factor in cybersecurity vendor selection

The CrowdStrike outage was a wake-up call about systemic technical risks. But the deeper challenge is the systemic geopolitical risk created when foreign-influenced companies with explicit political positions deploy AI systems with unprecedented access to sensitive organizational data.

The question isn’t whether organizations can afford to address these geopolitical cybersecurity risks—it’s whether they can afford not to.

Conclusion: The New Security Dilemma

We face a fundamental security dilemma in the AI age: the most advanced cybersecurity capabilities are increasingly controlled by foreign-funded entities with explicit geopolitical positions, while those same systems require unprecedented access to sensitive organizational data to function effectively.

The old model of politically-neutral cybersecurity vendors is dead. The new model—where cybersecurity companies take explicit geopolitical stances while their AI systems process sensitive data—creates risks that traditional security frameworks never contemplated.

Organizations must navigate this new landscape by:

  • Understanding the geopolitical implications of their cybersecurity choices
  • Implementing controls to manage foreign influence over sensitive data processing
  • Developing contingency plans for geopolitical disruptions to cybersecurity services
  • Building domestic and allied cybersecurity capabilities to reduce foreign dependencies

The cybersecurity industry’s transformation from a technical service to a geopolitical instrument means that every cybersecurity decision is now, inherently, a national security decision. Organizations that fail to recognize this new reality do so at their own peril—and potentially at the peril of the nations and communities they serve.

The age of cybersecurity nationalism has arrived. The question is whether we’ll adapt our security postures to match this new reality, or whether we’ll learn about the costs of geopolitical cybersecurity risks the hard way.

This analysis is based on publicly available information about cybersecurity companies, their investment structures, and geopolitical positioning. Organizations should conduct their own comprehensive risk assessments and consult with legal and security experts when evaluating geopolitical cybersecurity risks.