The Israel Innovation Lab of 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 activities of the company’s innovation lab. The aim of the cybersecurity center is to develop ways to assist Sompo in securing its products against cyber threats and provide solutions to the various units of the company around the world. Rotem Matok, Sompo Israel’s head of the cybersecurity sector will head the cybersecurity center.
The company is also establishing a software development group in Israel. The group will focus on creating new engines of growth, including solutions in the fields 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 collaborations with various startups. The teams will be comprised of programmers, product and design staff, and the group will be headed by Diyaa Shridi, CTO of the Innovation Center in Israel.
Sompo, which is one of the three biggest insurance companies in Japan, operates in 30 countries and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange with a market cap of $15 billion. In 2018, the company established its innovation lab in Tel Aviv, (it has two others in Tokyo and Silicon Valley), which is headed by Yinnon Dolev. The center leads commercial collaborations with Israeli startup companies such as Planck, Parametrix, GEOX, Easysend and others. The center in Israel believes in a policy of employment diversity and therefore employs equal numbers of women and men from different population groups and regions in the country.
Sompo Israel and Europe Digital Lab Head Yinnon Dolev said, "Establishing the cybersecurity center and development group is part of our trend of expanding into new areas, as well as the collaborations that we are creating with various startups."
Rotem Matok said, "In recent years, the average number of cyberattacks in Japan has increased significantly and in the first half of 2022 there were 7,800 attacks each day. This was double the number of daily attacks that was identified during 2019. In addition, the Japanese language has in the past served as a barrier against cyberattacks but the substantial improvement in translation programs between Japanese and other languages has led to a rise in the number of various cyberattack incidents." Matok added, "Almost all cyberattacks on Japan are conducted from outside of the country and the main threat for organizations is ransomware attacks. Sompo Israel’s cybersecurity center has begun work at a rapid pace and we have already reported on security damage to recognized off-the-shelf products, and bug vulnerabilities in Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Diyaa Shridi, CTO of Sompo’s Innovation Center in Israel explains, "We are in a world rich in data and advanced artificial intelligence models. A company that knows how to analyze mountains of data and derive advanced solutions from them, creates for itself a great advantage in the market over others. Up until now we have focused at Sompo on collaborations with Israeli startups, and now we are establishing a software development team that is responsible for creating ideas for the agile development of new products according to Sompo's specific needs."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on July 20, 2023.
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