Shalev Hulio, founder and former CEO of NSO group, an Israeli tech company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware, announced the founding of a new Artificial Intelligence institute at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University to support the government.
The new initiative named “The Institute” aims to become an Israeli hub for training and research on AI.
Hulio, once dubbed “Israel’s cyber bad boy”, has been a long-time loyal servant to Tel Aviv’s settler colonial project in Palestine, by providing tech-based security and surveillance solutions to the Israel state.
His firm NSO grew infamous after the Pegasus spyware was exposed for enabling human rights abuses.
Eventually, NSO was blacklisted by several countries including the US, and in August 2022, Hulio resigned as CEO.
Since then, Hulio has become involved in a web of new cybersecurity ventures.
In November, through a video filmed at the Gaza Strip, Hulio announced his new startup, Dream Security, an AI firm focused on defending critical infrastructure.
The strange yet symbolic gesture once again stood as a testimony to Hulio’s servitude to Israel during the ongoing genocidal war.
Hulio had earlier claimed that NSO’s Pegasus software was used to track down missing Israelis and captives held by Hamas.
The companies Hulio has been involved in – from NSO to Dream to IntelEye and now the AI institute, there are different, sometimes intersecting missions, but one thing is constant: All three support Israel in its genocidal war against Palestinians.
All of them engage in direct, offensive intelligence work, at the request of the Israeli government.
Now, with the newly launched institute, Hulio is moving his cybersecurity entrepreneurism into a different arena: the academy.
The launch of “The Institute” at Ben-Gurion University was attended by President Isaac Herzog.
An article in the Jerusalem Post described the institute as in partnership with the Israel Defense Forces’ elite cyber-spying unit, known as 8200.
Hulio and others in NSO including co-founders and employees were former members of the same unit.
Hulio had also held different positions in the IDF. His final posting was as a commander of a search and rescue team in the Home Front Command. His was initially posted as the first deputy commander of the Home Front’s infantry brigade, which was involved in a series of operations in the West Bank, during the second Intifada.
