Alon Cohen (CyberArk)
Israeli co-founder of CyberArk and former Mamram officer
| Alon Cohen
| |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1968 |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Occupation | Technology entrepreneur |
| Known for | Co-founder, first chief executive and long-time chairman of CyberArk |
- Not to be confused with Alon Cohen (Siemplify), co-founder of the security company Siemplify.
Alon Cohen (born c. 1968) is an Israeli technology entrepreneur who co-founded the identity-security company CyberArk in 1999 with his school friend Udi Mokady. He was its chief executive for six years and its chairman for fifteen. He later founded or co-founded FilesX, Intezer and nsKnox. He served for seven years in Mamram, the Israel Defense Forces' central computing unit, not in Unit 8200.[1]
Early life and Mamram
Calcalist reports that Cohen grew up in the then-deprived Baka neighbourhood of south Jerusalem, the son of Shalom, a police officer who had immigrated from Morocco, and Marlen, a Tunisian-born housewife. His father was killed in a work accident when Cohen was ten. Cohen was a goalkeeper for Hapoel Jerusalem until he was 18, when he was accepted into Mamram.[1] Globes wrote in 2001 that he had been "in charge of systems and security at Mamram (the IDF Central Data Processing Unit)".[2]
Cohen has said the idea for CyberArk came after a fellow soldier in a training unit hacked into the computer system and read a serialised love letter he had written to a female soldier: "if this happens at the IDF's computer center, then something is rotten in the world of information security." After seven years' service he was discharged as a specialist technologist.[1]
CyberArk
After leaving the army Cohen held security advisory posts at Cylink, Memco and other organisations, according to Globes.[2] In 1997, aged 29, he began developing a "network vault" in the basement of his home in Modi'in. Having raised $1.5 million, he asked Udi Mokady, then a lawyer, to join him, and CyberArk was founded in 1999.[1] Globes reported that the seed money came from Cabaret-ArbaOne. In July 2000 the company raised $6 million from SoftBank, Nomura and Chase Capital Partners.[2]
Cohen left active management in 2011. He sold most of his founder's shares in 2012–13, before the company's Nasdaq listing in 2014, and said in 2025 that he held less than 1%.[1] On Palo Alto Networks' $25 billion purchase of CyberArk he said it was "more of a merger than an acquisition". He responded to Shlomo Kramer's criticism of the deal with "time will tell".[1]
Other companies
Cohen founded FilesX, which was sold to IBM in 2008 for about $80 million, and the entertainment company Muvix, which closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2015 he founded the security-operations company Intezer, and in 2016 the payments-security company nsKnox.[1]
Politics
Cohen opposed the Netanyahu government's 2023 judicial overhaul and threatened not to register his new companies in Israel. He later responded to Netanyahu's claims about Israel's cyber achievements with a post saying: "If you really want to make Israel an AI or cyber superpower, retire from politics or go home." He told Calcalist that Gil Shwed "should have replaced himself as CEO long ago", and that Nir Zuk "is smart. He's not a CEO".[1]
See also
- CyberArk
- Udi Mokady
- Alon Cohen (disambiguation)
- Cyber and tech firms founded by ex Unit 8200 or occupation forces veterans