Personal: Ysrael Gurt, 35 years old, married with five children, lives in Bnei Brak.
Professional: Co-founder and CTO of Reflectiz, which specializes in website protection.
Childhood and family: "I was born into a haredi family in Haifa, and I have two brothers and three sisters. My mother is a teacher, and my father worked in computing in the Ministry of Construction and Housing. I got my love of computing from my father, although he focused more on hardware and networks. From a young age, I was more drawn to programming."
Programming in yeshiva: "When I was thirteen years old, my father gave me a book for learning programming. The problem was that as a child in heder I learned Yiddish as a second language and I didn’t know a word of English. Today, children in heder learn English. I learned the ABC by myself, and after that, from programming books, I learned words as well. I had no-one to ask, I didn’t have Internet, and I had to understand everything by myself. I did it during my free time from yeshiva."
National service: "I did civilian national service for a year. At first, I tried to offer help in programming, but it didn’t work out, so I went on to assisting old people through the Hovat Hatalmidim non-profit organization."
First job: "I got married at twenty, and three years after that, for financial reasons, I decided to leave studying and start to work. In my hasidic environment, leaving the yeshiva and going out to work three years after getting married is perhaps a bit quick, but it happens."
Programmer without experience: "In 2011, I started to work as a programmer at Menahel4U, a company that implements, integrates, and develops applications for the SAP Business One system. I had no practical experience, but I had confidence. When they asked me if I knew how to do web programming, I said I did. I was in that job for three years, and I came across all kinds of security weaknesses. Unlike most people, who learn programming like a recipe book, my way of independent study led to deeper understanding of how it all works."
Attack in an interview: "In 2013, I found a substantial bug in a big Israeli website, the name of which I won’t disclose, and I reported it to them. They checked, and invited me to meet them. My mother warned me not to go because the police would be waiting for me, but I went. They praised me and asked if I would like to work for them. I didn’t want to, but when I returned home I sent a CV for a data security investigator job at cybersecurity company BugSec. I planted a dangerous attack onto their website, and at the job interview I revealed it. I got the job."
The glamor of Google: "I saw that I was a successful hacker, and so the dream germinated within me of becoming part of the glamorous world of ethical hackers at Google. Initially I found a vulnerability actually in Microsoft Outlook, I reported it to them, and they sent me a check for $2,500. I started to look for security bugs in Gmail, and I found them. They sent me $5,000 and placed me 136th in their Hall of Fame."
The way to the startup: "In 2016, Idan Cohen, who was CEO of BugSec, and I decided to found a startup together. But we already had three children, my wife is a social worker, and I couldn’t afford to resign. I decided to find security bugs in major websites and to devote the money to setting up the startup. I reported vulnerabilities in Gmail three times and rose to 22nd place in the Hall of Fame. I reported a bug in Facebook as well. They didn’t believe me at first. Within nine months I earned $50,000 from discovering security bugs."
Reflectiz: "We developed a technological platform for managing exposure of websites to risks and protecting them, by screening sites from outside. It’s a complicated technological solution and it took us three years to make it work. There’s a belief in the cyber world that the Internet is a solvable problem. Cyber solutions started to focus on cloud and AI and a large area of attacks that is open and defenseless was forgotten."
The numbers: "Today, we have 140 customers, most of them large, including important government sites, banks, and e-commerce sites, and annual revenue in the millions of dollars. To date, we’ve raised $28 million in two rounds. The last round was led by US fund Fulcrum Equity Partners. It was their first investment in an Israeli company. Our offices are in Ramat Gan and we have 40 employees."
Kosher phone: "I have a mobile telephone of the old generation, without Internet, which I use for calls only. At work I use a computer, and when I leave the office I’m not online. In my personal life that’s a huge advantage, because it enables me to detach myself and to be with the family."
A haredi entrepreneur: "In ten years’ time I’d like to see a reality in which no-one looks at me, a haredi high-tech entrepreneur in a black suit and hat, as anything out of the ordinary."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 17, 2025.
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