A few weeks ago, an envelope from the American embassy arrived in Meir's (pseudonym) mailbox. "Inside were personal letters for me, my wife, and each of my children," he recounts.
"In the letters, we were notified that all our US visas had been confiscated, and that we shouldn't dare try to enter America. The letter also 'strongly recommended' that we bring our passports to the American embassy so they could physically remove the visas. My son was supposed to study for a semester at an American university, which won't happen now, and my wife works for an American company. How can I explain to them that she is not approved to enter the US?" Meir wasn't given an official reason for revoking his and his family members' visas, but he doesn't need one. Meir is a senior executive at an Israeli offensive cyber company, and he's far from the only one in this industry whose US visa has been revoked.
As we are revealing for the first time, recently more and more employees at Israeli offensive cyber companies have been receiving letters from the American embassy with similar notifications about the cancellation of their visas and those of their family members, according to senior sources in the industry.
"It's an industry that's collapsing"
This phenomenon, which threatens the future of an industry already in crisis, has remained below the radar until now because most workers whose visas have been canceled prefer not to disclose the matter, fearing they will be fired or struggle to find work in the field. "Do you know what it means for a high-tech worker to have their American visa taken away?" says an industry source. "It's a death blow and grounds for dismissal."
In the past two and a half years, the Americans have taken a series of steps that have caused companies like NSO and Candiru to lose customers and employees, and other companies in the industry, such as Quadream, to shut down completely.
According to testimonies received by Israel Hayom, dozens of industry employees, including "vulnerability" researchers who form the spearhead of offensive cyber, have recently decided to move abroad, where they work for foreign companies.
National interests and commercial struggles involving technology giants are intertwined. According to several Israeli sources we spoke with, there are also antisemitic and anti-Israeli tendencies among senior officials in Washington.
According to several senior executives in the local offensive cyber industry, the State of Israel has not done enough to protect it and has abandoned it to American interests. "We have an entire industry that's simply collapsing," says one of them. "We're businesspeople, but we're not just losing money. Israel is losing an incredible security capability here, and the state is doing nothing to prevent it."
