Lior Frenkel
Israeli engineer and former Israeli Air Force research officer; co-founder of the offensive-cyber company Gita Technologies and co-founder and chief executive of Waterfall Security Solutions
| Lior Frenkel
| |
|---|---|
| Image |  Frenkel, from the Waterfall Security Solutions website |
| Nationality | Israeli |
| Occupation | Engineer; company chief executive |
| Known for | Co-founder of Gita Technologies; co-founder and chief executive of Waterfall Security Solutions |
| Education | Bar-Ilan University (BSc, computer science and statistics) |
Lior Frenkel is an Israeli engineer and businessman. He served in the Israeli Air Force, including in a research and development unit that, in his words, developed projects "intended to gather intelligence for the air force".[1] He co-founded the Israeli signals-intelligence and cyber company Gita Technologies, which he later said "dealt with offensive cyber warfare", and then the industrial cyber-security company Waterfall Security Solutions, of which he is chief executive.[2][3]
Military service
Frenkel told Forbes in 2013 that he started programming at the age of eight, was being paid by companies for programming at 16, and "was drafted at 18 into the Israeli Defense Force" (Israel Defense Forces). According to Forbes, he studied before serving in the Israeli Air Force and signed on to "an eight year program". He said: "I studied computer science and statistics at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan. Then I joined the IAF and built computers for fighter jets" (Bar-Ilan University).[1]
Forbes said that he then worked in "an R&D unit that is similar to America's Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA) program". Frenkel said: "The R&D unit was developing long-term projects intended to gather intelligence for the air force. 13 out of 15 projects did not go anywhere. But one or two of them were amazing breakthroughs."[1]
Gita Technologies
The Israeli business database IVC names Frenkel, Asher Baharav and Amir Zilberstein as the co-founders of Gita Technologies and gives its founding year as 2000.[2] A 2014 conference biography says that "In 2001 Lior Co-Founded Gita Technologies Ltd, a high-end security research and development company".[4] Frenkel told Forbes: "In 2001, I started a company that did R&D for Israeli companies. By 2006, we had 30 people and were profitable -- without having raised outside funding." He said that he left in 2005 to work on the technology that became Waterfall.[1]
IVC describes Gita as working in signals intelligence, "real-time interception, location finding, cyber warfare" and "reverse engineering of complex protocols" for "government agencies and high-end enterprises worldwide".[2] In 2020 Frenkel told the Israeli electronics news site Techtime that Waterfall's products were based on experience he had gained at Gita, "which dealt with offensive cyber warfare". He said: "There was not a single event when we were unable to carry out an intrusion. It made me realize the great weakness of the industrial facilities."[3] Gita was later bought by Verint and is now a subsidiary of Cognyte.[2][5]
Waterfall Security Solutions
The WaterFall one-way data-transfer system began as a Gita Technologies product. In March 2006 the Israeli business site Bizportal reported that the integrator Team Computers and Systems (Tim) had signed an agreement to market "the information-security product of Gita Technologies, the WaterFall", a hardware system for one-way optical transfer of data between networks aimed "mainly at the financial, security and industrial sectors".[6] IVC lists Waterfall Security Solutions as a spin-off of Gita.[2] According to Techtime, Waterfall was founded in 2007, is based in Rosh HaAyin and had about 100 employees in Israel and the United States in 2020.[3][7]
Frenkel told Forbes in 2013 that Waterfall had sold its product to "half the nuclear power plants in the U.S." by the end of 2010, and that it planned to expand into oil and gas, water and wastewater treatment.[1] In 2020 Techtime reported that Waterfall had installed its system at the Shafdan wastewater treatment plant near Rishon LeZion, which serves the Tel Aviv area.[3]
A biography on the website of the industrial cyber-security group CS2AI, where he sits on the global advisory board, says that his experience "spans research, design and development of mission critical systems and national cyber security technologies and programs", and that he "is a frequent contributor to regulatory steering committees, governmental forums, public hearings and closed-door briefings".[8]
| Company | Role | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Gita Technologies | Co-founder (2000 according to IVC; 2001 according to a conference biography) | [2][4] |
| Waterfall Security Solutions | Co-founder; chief executive | [4][8] |
See also
- Gita Technologies
- Amir Zilberstein
- Asher Baharav
- Cyber and tech firms founded by ex Unit 8200 or occupation forces veterans
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Peter Cohan, Waterfall Security Defends Power Plants From Hackers Forbes, 23 September 2013 (archived copy), accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 IVC Research Center, Gita Technologies Ltd. IVC-Online, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Techtime, Cyber protection for Tel Aviv Wastewater Treatment Plant Techtime, 19 July 2020, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 ICS Cyber Security Conference, Deploying Unidirectional Gateways to Secure Offshore Platforms 2014 ICS Cyber Security Conference, 22 October 2014, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Cognyte Software Ltd., Exhibit 8.1: Subsidiaries of Cognyte Software Ltd. (exhibit to Form 20-F for the year ended 31 January 2026), US Securities and Exchange Commission, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Bizportal, תים תשווק פיירוול של גיטה שאינו מבוסס על תוכנה (Tim will market a Gita firewall that is not software-based), Bizportal (Hebrew), 19 March 2006, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ Techtime, ווטרפול פרסה תשתית סייבר במתקני השפד"ן (Waterfall deploys cyber infrastructure at the Shafdan facilities), Techtime (Hebrew), 12 July 2020, accessed 10 November 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 CS2AI, Lior Frenkel Control System Cyber Security Association International, accessed 10 November 2026.