"Being 'Blue and White' at Black Hat is a 100% Advantage": How Israelis Took Over the World's Largest Cyber Conference

If you have a feeling that the streets in Tel Aviv are a bit emptier this week, you are not wrong. In addition to many Israelis taking advantage of the security lull to go on vacation, the entire local cyber industry is flocking to Las Vegas for the huge annual Black Hat cyber conference.

"It's crazy to think that Israel is such a small place in the world, but when you get to Black Hat, the data says that one in every four people at the conference is Israeli," says Hila Zigman, a general partner at the venture capital fund Cyberstarts, which focuses on cyber and holds a portfolio of companies like Wiz, Onyx, and A Security. "We are truly a cyber empire. It creates an illusion that Israel is full of people."

The conference program, which runs for six days, functions in many ways as a direct continuation of the Startup Nation narrative. It serves as a representative event for the most dominant technology sector in Israel and the venture capital industry behind it.

"It's definitely a unique market and place, and I think being Israeli here is a 100% advantage," says Aner Mazor, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Tenzai, a platform for offensive security automation. "People from all over the world come to talk about what the next problem in the security world will be, how the category will be defined this year, and what the budget will look like," explains Zigman. She recalls her first time at the conference, where the presence of 20,000 information security leaders (CISOs) created a unique energy: "You have about three days where you can meet almost every CISO in the world."