AI & the Fifth Domain of Warfare: A Talk with Eyal Balicer, Cybersecurity Innovator & Thought Leader

AI & the Fifth Domain of Warfare: A Talk with Eyal Balicer, Cybersecurity Innovator & Thought Leader

By Michael Matias, CEO of Clarity and Forbes 30 Under 30 alumCybersecurity has entered a new domain—literally. As Eyal Balicer put it in our recent conversation: “Cyberspace is now the fifth domain of warfare.” But in this domain, the battleground isn’t just code. It’s control.Eyal brings a rare vantage point to the AI-cyber nexus—he’s held senior cybersecurity roles in the Israeli government, Fortune 100 companies like Citi, and top-tier venture capital. Our discussion centered on a growing truth: with the rise of agentic systems—AI entities that can act, decide, and evolve—the mission of cybersecurity is changing.“We are shifting from a world where intelligence was a scarce resource to one where that is not necessarily the case; true agency is becoming the new elusive driver of prosperity and growth,” Eyal explained. “The systems we are now securing are not just automated—they are autonomous, highly competent, and opaque. Traditional defenses cannot keep up.”It’s a shift I’ve seen firsthand at Clarity, where we build proactive defenses against deepfakes and AI-generated phishing. Just like Shahar Peled told me about agentic AI revolutionizing offensive testing, Eyal sees these agents redefining global threat models. The challenge isn’t identifying known threats—it’s safeguarding systems that learn, adapt, and act independently.And that requires a new security architecture.“An AI agent can have fluid permissions, context-based roles, and evolving identity,” he told me. “Conventional IAM just does not cut it anymore.” In that sense, Balicer echoes voices like Ron Nissim and Alon Jackson, who both called for a redefinition of identity management in the AI age.But Eyal's view goes broader: geopolitical. He sees cybersecurity not just as a business enabler, but as a pillar of national resilience. From financial systems to defense infrastructure, the stakes have never been higher. “The future will require autonomous cybersecurity—not just automated, pre-defined playbooks, but real-time, adaptive agents who reason and defend at the edge, with varying degrees of human intervention.”We discussed how the regulatory map only adds to the complexity. “The fragmentation across jurisdictions makes cross-border cybersecurity brittle,” Eyal warned. His point was clear: the only viable strategy is proactive, agentic, adaptable security. Not static controls. Not red-alert dashboards.The recent acquisition of Wiz by Google, he said, is just the beginning. “This will eventually lead to an entrepreneurial Cambrian explosion in cybersecurity,” Eyal predicted. And much like Dorit Dor told me, the organizations that survive will be those that move fast—and let AI lead the charge.As we closed, his advice was blunt: “Ignoring this revolution is not an option. AI evolves daily. Your security safeguards and controls should not lag behind.”My takeaway? Eyal isn’t just talking about new tools—he’s laying out a new doctrine.Agentic AI isn’t coming. It’s here. And if we don’t secure it now, we risk losing control of the systems that already make decisions for us.The future of cyber isn’t just proactive. It’s autonomous. And it’s already reshaping the balance of power.

Avsnitt(1165)

Ep522: Limor Segev | VP Product, Pecan

Ep522: Limor Segev | VP Product, Pecan

Limor is a proud mother of 4 and very happily married. She has over 18 years of experience in tech, last 11 years in product management in startups, eBay and WeWork. During her career, she was always attracted to data and ways to leverage it to make a business impact. Her last two roles before joining Pecan were eBay where she led the product team for the eBay catalog and in WeWork billing and payments. Today she leads Product at Pecan, with the mission to empower every data analyst to create business impact using ML and predictive analytics.

9 Aug 202120min

Ep521: Maor Farid | Postdoctoral Fulbright and ISEF Fellow, MIT

Ep521: Maor Farid | Postdoctoral Fulbright and ISEF Fellow, MIT

Dr. Farid is a lecturer and Fulbright scholar at the Technion and MIT, and a member of Harvard’s Leadership Program. He completed his Ph.D. with honors as the youngest graduate at the Technion at the age of 24, focusing on seismic protection of nuclear reactors. He served as a Captain and AI researcher in Unit 8200 and was acknowledged as an excellent Scientist (top 3 academics in the IDF). Farid is the founder and CEO of 'Lilmod Lehatsliach' (Hebrew: Learn to Succeed) – an NGO for empowering youth at risk from the Israeli periphery, and the author of the top seller “Learn to Succeed”.

9 Aug 202118min

Ep519: Dekel Persi | Co Founder and Managing Partner, TPY Capital

Ep519: Dekel Persi | Co Founder and Managing Partner, TPY Capital

Dekel Persi is a founding partner at TPY Capital, an early-stage venture capital fund with over $135M under management. TPY Capital partners with both serial and first-time entrepreneurs seeking partners who share similar values and hands-on support. TPY Capital invested in more than 20 companies including AI21, UniPaaS, H2Pro, Qedma, Pasqal, Paramount Data, TabNine, Signals, Seebo and Enzymotec.

8 Aug 202123min

Ep520: Sreeram Ravinoothala | Director of R&D, VMWare

Ep520: Sreeram Ravinoothala | Director of R&D, VMWare

Sreeram is Director of R&D at VMWare a cloud computing and virtualization company. He runs an R&D team across Geos that provides connectivity and services for workloads that run on multi-clouds using NSX orchestrator or that works based on K8s orchestration. Sreeram has delivered products that help customers to focus on the workloads or apps than on the underlying infrastructure. Sreeram's focus has now been to look at SaaS-based infrastructure services in a multi-cloud scenario.

8 Aug 202123min

Ep518: Ziv Peled | Chief Customer Officer, AppsFlyer

Ep518: Ziv Peled | Chief Customer Officer, AppsFlyer

Ziv knew he wanted to work in hi-tech since he was 13, he got closer and closer every summer break. Year after year people gave him a chance to do more and learn more, he hopes he's paying his debt today. In his 20+ years, he mostly worked customer-facing and he truly loves the relationship companies develop with their customers and the importance of it in B2B SaaS.

7 Aug 202123min

Ep517: Shimon Tolts | CEO & Co-Founder, Datree

Ep517: Shimon Tolts | CEO & Co-Founder, Datree

Shimon established and managed the Software Engineering Infrastructure department for 400 engineers at ironSource. Also, as an AWS Community Hero, Shimon runs the largest AWS user group worldwide and is an avid speaker at conferences. Today, Shimon is the CEO & Co-Founder at Datree, an automated policy enforcement solution for Kubernetes. The CLI tool prevents Kubernetes misconfigurations by ensuring the manifests and Helm charts follow best practices, as well as your organization's policies.

7 Aug 202122min

Ep516: Tato Bigio | Co-Founder and CEO, UBQ Materials Ltd.

Ep516: Tato Bigio | Co-Founder and CEO, UBQ Materials Ltd.

Co-Founder and CEO of UBQ Materials, Tato is redefining household waste as a valuable material feedstock for the manufacturing industry. Prior to UBQ, he co-founded and managed Merhav Renewable Energies (MRE), where he developed and implemented large-scale wind, solar, and bioethanol projects around the world. Before selling MRE in 2008, Tato served as the President and CEO of Ampal-American Israel Corporation, an investment company traded on both the NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv stock exchanges. A native of Lima-Peru, Bigio grew up in the shores of the Pacific Ocean with a passion for diving and sailing which he carries till today.

6 Aug 202122min

Ep515: Adam Kogan | Co-founder and head of Product, PayMe

Ep515: Adam Kogan | Co-founder and head of Product, PayMe

Adam is the co-founder and head of Product of PayMe, an Israeli FinTech company providing financial services to micro-businesses.  PayMe is his 3rd company since leaving the military as an officer in military intelligence

6 Aug 202122min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

badfluence
framgangspodden
varvet
rss-borsens-finest
svd-ledarredaktionen
rss-svart-marknad
avanzapodden
24fragor
lastbilspodden
rss-dagen-med-di
fill-or-kill
borsmorgon
rikatillsammans-om-privatekonomi-rikedom-i-livet
uppgang-och-fall
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
dynastin
affarsvarlden
rss-en-rik-historia
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
tabberaset