Lior Div
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Lior Div is an Israeli serial entrepreneur and is best known for founding Cybereason, a Boston-based cybersecurity company and 7AI. His expertise includes hacking, digital and cyber forensics, reverse engineering, malware analysis, and cryptography, among others. Div was a former commander of a cybersecurity team within the Israeli Intelligence Corps.
Early life and education
[edit]The information about Div’s early life, including the details of his birth, is sparse. He has had dyslexia from early age.[1]
Initially, Div wanted to be a fighter pilot when he joined the Israeli army at 18.[2][3] Due to an undisclosed medical condition, however, he was unable to join a fighter pilot course. In 1996, when he was 18, he joined the IDF’s secretive training programs. He was one of the few trainees who survived the rigorous training and were invited to be part of Unit 8200, the group tasked with the collection of signal intelligence and decrypting codes.[2][4] Later, he was sent to an officers’ school and became part of a group of officers tasked with understanding how cyber security works in the new world. He eventually became a commander of a cyber security team in Unit 8200.[5][6]
Tech entrepreneur
[edit]After six years of service in the Israeli Defense Forces, Div founded Alfa Tech, a startup that secured cybersecurity contracts from Israeli government agencies.[1] In interviews, Div would cite his dyslexia as a key contributor to his success. He maintained, for instance, that he learned reverse engineering at an early age as he had difficulty reading and was forced to understand his first-grade teacher’s reading comprehension lectures.[3]
Div co-founded Cybereason with other Israeli-born entrepreneurs, Yonatan Striem-Amit and Yossi Naar. The company was initially engaged in developing technologies that provided organizations protection from hard to detect cyber intrusions.[7] It would later expand in the United States, prompting Div to immigrate and settle in Boston in 2014 to be closer to the market.[7] By 2019, it was reported that Cybereason had grown exponentially and was already valued at $1 billion. The company, which diversified its services to include Internet of Things and device protection, was serving clients in the finance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, and manufacturing industries around the world.[7]
Div also co-founded 7AI, a startup that capitalizes on artificial intelligence to streamline cybersecurity processes through the development of the so-called AI swarming agents to offload non-human work.[8][9]
Div’s recent works included a report on an alleged ongoing Chinese cyber espionage campaign. According to him, the theft of intellectual property through associated activities costs American companies trillions of dollars annually.[10]
References
[edit]- ^ a b "How my dyslexia launched my hacking career". CSO Online. 2016-01-27. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ a b Arvatz, Alon (2023); The Battle for Your Computer: Israel and the Growth of the Global Cyber-Security ndustry; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons; ISBN 978-1-394-17415-7. P. 65
- ^ a b Eide, Fernette (2016-03-15). "Dyslexia Cybersecurity CEO Lior Div - Hacking the Hackers". Dyslexic Advantage. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ "Why this founder left Israel's elite cybersecurity unit to found a Boston startup". Built In Boston. 2016-12-01. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ "Lior Div". CSO Online. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ Rabinovitch, Ari. "Hackers steal data from telcos in espionage campaign: cyber firm". Retrieved 16 November 2025.
- ^ a b c Anderson, Stuart (2019-05-22). "Immigrant Lior Div Brings Jobs And An Israeli Cybersecurity Approach To America". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ Glassner, Amanada (2025-08-25). "7AI Puts Swarming AI Agents In The Hands Of Defenders To Offload Non-Human Work". Cybercrime Magazine. Retrieved 2025-11-17.
- ^ Pressman, Aron. "Israeli cybersecurity expert plans his comeback in Boston". Retrieved 16 November 2025.
- ^ Holstein, William J.; McLaughlin, Michael (2023-08-15). Battlefield Cyber: How China and Russia are Undermining Our Democracy and National Security. Simon and Schuster. p. 44. ISBN 978-1-63388-902-6.