“Even our imagination is limited by the current possibilities confronting us, such that it blinds us to the full extent of the risks and opportunities presented by the artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum revolutions,” a former IDF Unit 8200 intelligence official has told The Jerusalem Post in an exclusive interview.
On the risks side of the challenge, Julia Kogan Ehrlich, now an angel investor and advisor to early-stage startups, confirmed that hackers powered by AI have become much more dangerous, potentially penetrating critical infrastructure.
Kogan Ehrlich noted that significant portions of critical infrastructure, from energy to water to transportation, are more likely to use “open source code,” which enables AI cyber attackers to more easily cause harm in the physical world alongside the digital world.
According to Kogan Ehrlich, AI hackers can more rapidly and efficiently explore social engineering techniques to personalize their attacks and exploit vulnerabilities they may never have identified in the pre-AI hacking era.
The former Unit 8200 official warned that, “You can defend well hundreds of times, but they only have to get through once. It is always harder to protect than it is to attack. It is never an equal equation. One side is always more powerful – the attacker.”
Kogan Ehrlich’s optimism and vision for cybersecurity
Despite these challenges, Kogan Ehrlich expressed optimism about the creative capacities of current and former Israeli cyber intelligence officials to “create new solutions” to protect the country and clients outside Israel.
Regarding using AI for security, Kogan Ehrlich said, “I don’t know how it is going to look. Companies will understand the cybersecurity needs, the market value at stake, and then create a solution.”
But these solutions will constantly evolve. “As long as there is AI, what the vulnerabilities are will continue to be a developing issue,” she added.
Kogan Ehrlich moved on to addressing how to use AI to “create the new business idea.”
“We are working side by side with AI,” Kogan Ehrlich said. “This is a middle generation. There will be a later, different, and new generation which will more decisively rely on AI.”
Regarding the potential threat of quantum computing (exponentially faster than supercomputers, but not yet usable) hacking in the coming years, Kogan Ehrlich acknowledged the dangers, saying, “We are facing a new revolution. We are not prepared. But these are still exciting times. Even our imagination is limited based on what we know compared to our potential bright new future.”
Kogan Ehrlich’s service in 8200
Kogan Ehrlich served for nearly a decade performing SIGINT (signals intelligence) work for the IDF.
She started off as a technical officer handling intelligence and first responses in operational situations across all the various borders.
At some point, she was more focused on threats and intelligence on the southern front, and later she was back to viewing the broader threat matrix.
Recalling that Iran was always the number one intelligence target, she said that it was a full circle experience seeing how the Israel-Iran War played out in June 2025.
During an unexpected war in the 2000s, she and others had to rapidly learn about issues in a region they had not previously specialized in.
It was a part of the world that no one had cared much about, but in Unit 8200, if the world changed overnight, the unit and its officers had to adapt quickly.
This kind of thinking has helped Kogan Ehrlich advise companies on strategies to avoid situations in which their products or business strategies suddenly become obsolete.
After leaving Unit 8200, she moved into the cyber arena by joining Verint.
Verint has worked with Cloud9 to provide the financial services market with fully compliant, cloud-enabled communications solutions to support traders both on the trading floor and remotely, “providing necessary flexibility as the industry continues to move to cloud-based platforms and work-from-home environments.”
After two years at Verint, she moved to Biocatch, where she focused on fintech cyber issues, including combating complex digital fraud attacks.
While at Biocatch, she combined cybersecurity expertise with behavioral analysis to identify the solutions markets would be looking for next.
8200’s uniqueness – dealing with the AI revolution
Kogan Ehrlich said that startups work hard, but that generally employees “still have some kind of closure to the work day in the evening if there is no tier one problem. Most problems can be resolved the next day.”
In contrast, she noted that Unit 8200 officers need to work at the base due to the classified nature of their work.
“Even after what might be considered the end of someone’s shift,” Kogan Ehrlich explained, “the officers often remain on the base and continue to ponder and ‘discuss creative strategies’ to achieve new projects they have been assigned and to promote some aspect of a project which so far has been missing.”
She said this “unlimited time commitment” and “constant focus on accomplishing the national goal” cannot be fully replicated in the average corporate or startup setting.
Kogan Ehrlich said possibly only some very devoted research labs might approximate aspects of the devotion and readiness for out-of-the-box thinking that occurs constantly at Unit 8200.
Another positive is that for Unit 8200 and other top IDF intelligence programs, “you are just getting handed a great pool of people. 8200 is getting the A+ people every year like clockwork,” Kogan Ehrlich stated.
“Compare that to the process of trying to lure people to work for the government after college,” Kogan Ehrlich suggested rhetorically. “They have to search for talented people and then have to fight for them by offering unusual perks and benefits.”
Businesses do not always get the resources and people they want, and often work hard to “steal” talented employees from one competitor or another, she explained.
Kogan Ehrlich stated, “With Unit 8200, you don’t need to do that. You can maximize the force, with unlimited resources, unlimited time, and capacity to think and plan. All a commander needs to do is guide those great minds to a certain goal or idea.”