The Israeli Innovation Lab of the Japanese insurance giant Sompo, which has been operating in Israel since 2018, is opening a cybersecurity center and establishing a software development group in Israel, as part of the expansion of the company’s innovation lab activities. The goal of the Cyber Security Center is to develop ways to help Sompo secure its products against cyber threats and to offer solutions to the company’s various units around the world. Rotem Matoc, Sompo Israel’s Head of the Cyber Security Sector, will head the Cyber Security Center.
The company is also establishing a software development group in Israel. The group will focus on creating new drivers of growth, including solutions in the areas of insurance and health based on feedback from the company’s customers as well as developing ideas that come from Sompo’s business units and collaborating with various start-ups. The teams will consist of programmers, production and design personnel, and the group will be headed by Dia Shredi, Chief Technology Officer of the Israel Innovation Center.
Sompo, one of the three largest insurance companies in Japan, operates in 30 countries and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $15 billion. In 2018, the company established its innovation lab in Tel Aviv (it has two others in Tokyo and Silicon Valley), headed by Yinon Dolev. The center leads commercial collaborations with Israeli startups such as Planck, Parametrix, GEOX, Easysend and others. The center in Israel believes in a policy of functional diversity and therefore employs equal numbers of women and men from different population groups and regions of the country.
“The creation of the Cybersecurity Center and Development Group is part of our drive to expand into new areas, as well as the cooperation we are establishing with many startups,” said Yinon Dolev, Head of the Sompo Israel and Europe Digital Lab.
“In recent years, the average number of cyber-attacks in Japan has increased dramatically, and in the first half of 2022 there were 7,800 attacks per day. This was double the number of daily attacks identified during 2019. In addition, the Japanese language in the past served as a barrier against cyber-attacks but the significant improvement in translation software between Japanese and other languages has led to a rise in the number of various cyber-attacks,” said Rotem Matok. Matoc added, “Almost all cyber attacks on Japan are performed from outside the country, and the main threat to organizations is ransomware attacks. The Sompo Israel Cyber Security Center has begun work at a rapid pace and we have already reported security damage to recognized off-the-shelf products, and vulnerabilities in Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“We are in a world rich in data and advanced AI models. A company that knows how to analyze hills of data and derive advanced solutions from it, creates for itself a huge advantage in the market over others. Until now we at Sompo focused on cooperation with Israeli startups, and now we are creating a software development team that takes responsibility for product development according to the company’s needs,” explains Dia Shredi, CTO of the Sompo Innovation Center in Israel.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on Jul 20, 2023.
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