One of the hallmarks of the first term of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a renewed take on foreign diplomacy and international relations. In 2017, Modi visited Israel – becoming the first Indian prime minister to do so. But even before the prime minister visited the country, the relationship between India and Israel was thriving – Israel is one of the premier startup destinations with a formidable moat of investors, scientific minds, research capabilities and startups. Several alliances have been forged between industry bodies representing both nations to support and encourage startups to foster innovation and work collaboratively to address challenges pertaining to drinking water, sanitation, health and cybersecurity.

However, the historic visit by PM Modi in 2017 was important for another reason – the two nations signed an agreement to strengthen cybersecurity, and possibly foster bilateral ties between the two governments and businesses. The Middle Eastern nation is a powerhouse for the $82 billion global cybersecurity industry, has more than 400 funded cybersecurity companies and is second to the United States in terms of being a cybersecure nation. Having fostered some of the world’s most elite and capable military and intelligence officials, Israel’s affinity and natural talent for cybersecurity isn’t entirely surprising, and believes these capabilities are only relevant to combat the existential threats of a digital world. It would naturally bode well for India to fortify its talent and innovation capabilities in cybersecurity, with the able guidance of its Middle Eastern ally. In fact, in 2020, iCreate and Israel’s Start Up Nation Central signed an MoU to work on a bilateral programme that would accelerate innovation and technology cooperation between the startups and corporates in both countries. In July last year, Sanjeev Singla, Ambassador of India to Israel and Yigal Unna, Director General of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate signed an agreement to expand their cooperation in cybersecurity.

What germinated during a key state visit in 2017 is yielding results. A slew of cybersecurity startups are flourishing in India and Israel, as the two ecosystems play off each other’s abilities in R&D, technological prowess and market potential. Aditya Narang was working as a cyber defence consultant where he met Liad Herman. Together, the duo started Safehouse Technologies in 2016 in stealth mode – an Indo-Israeli security solutions startup headquartered in Tel Aviv, with offices in London and New Delhi. A stint in cyber defence solution management allowed Narang and Herman to fashion a similar technology stack and solutions for civilians, safeguarding them from phishing scams, bank frauds, identity theft and more. Safehouse Technologies’ military grade technology heavily leverages cloud-based AI to detect and prevent threats online in real time. The launch of operations in India was especially significant following the Indo-Israel agreement to ramp up cyber defence. In June last year, Safehouse Technologies launched its flagship mobile security product BodyGuard, with enhanced AI-based security capabilities and high-level encryption – completely built in the company’s R&D facility in Tel Aviv. Narang says Israelis have an ethos of being out-of-the-box thinkers, especially in the domain of cybersecurity. “Israelis are keen that their products and solutions have high benchmarks in industry. This is a strong belief they endorse and imbibe in the way they approach R&D, operations, supply chain and market strategies, and the same reflects in our team here as well.”

For Israel, the world is its go-to-market – and this go-getter spirit is what they seek – be it in Israel or outside. Pavan Thatha believes this was one of the many reasons his startup, Bengaluru-based ShieldSquare was acquired in 2019 by Radware, a NASDAQ-listed American-Israeli cybersecurity giant that powers more than 12,500 enterprise and carrier customers globally. Radware announced that the acquisition was to improve its cloud security portfolio and enhanced anti-bot and fraudulent traffic protection. Founded in 2014, ShieldSquare develops bot intelligence solutions, providing users visibility into traffic and detected, known bot signatures. The company says these technologies can be used to protect clients against API abuse, malicious traffic, DDoS attacks, and content scraping. In addition, the firm runs BotDefense Lab, a team of researchers monitoring the spread and development of bot-based attacks. Thatha, who is now leads the bot management business at Radware says Israel’s domain knowledge in cybersecurity is second to none. “Indian startups have strong capabilities in engineering, R&D, innovation functions. We now need to focus on increasing our capabilities in product & domain, especially in fields like cybersecurity. The thriving relationship between the two nations can boost India’s might as a cybersecurity hub.”

At Tel Aviv’s 7th Annual Cybersecurity Conference, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that “Cyber is a great business. It’s growing geometrically because there is never a permanent solution, it’s a never-ending business.” At CyberWeek 2019, the Israeli National Cyber Directorate stated that it has established international cooperation with 36 countries and 13 organisations in the area of cyber defence. India’s historic agreement with Israel in cybersecurity is one that is an example of technological bureaucracy, and one that’s highly relevant in current times.