CYBEREASON

Three former members of Unit 8200 — Israel's elite intelligence unit, the equivalent of the NSA — founded Cybereason in 2012. Lior Div, Yossi Naar, and Yonatan Striem-Amit brought military-grade cyber offense knowledge and flipped it to defense.

Their insight: most security tools show individual alerts in isolation. Cybereason connects the dots across an entire attack — from initial phishing email to lateral movement to data exfiltration — and presents it as a single visual story.

They called this the "Malop" (malicious operation). The military background was genuine — these guys hunted state-sponsored hackers before starting a company.

Cybereason sells endpoint detection and response (EDR) software to enterprises. The platform monitors every device in a company's network for signs of cyberattack.

When threats are detected, the system maps the entire attack chain and enables automated response. Revenue comes from annual subscriptions based on the number of endpoints (computers, servers, devices) being protected.

Cybereason Defense Platform — endpoint detection and response (EDR). MalOp Detection — the signature feature that visualizes entire attack chains.

Extended Detection and Response (XDR) — expanding beyond endpoints to cloud, identity, and network. Managed Detection and Response (MDR) — 24/7 security monitoring service.

Military pedigree marketing. The Unit 8200 background gave Cybereason instant credibility with CISOs and enterprise security teams.

SoftBank's massive investment ($300M+ across rounds) funded aggressive global expansion, particularly in Japan and Asia-Pacific markets where SoftBank has deep relationships.

CrowdStrike dominated the market. While Cybereason was building, CrowdStrike went public and became the default enterprise endpoint security platform.

The market largely became a two-horse race between CrowdStrike and SentinelOne, leaving Cybereason fighting for third place. SoftBank's investment came with growth expectations that were hard to meet in such a competitive market.

SoftBank Vision Fund was the largest investor ($300M+). Other investors include Lockheed Martin, CRV, Spark Capital, and Liberty Strategic Capital (Stephen Feinberg's fund).

The SoftBank relationship opened doors in Japan but came with intense growth pressure.