Aim Security

Founding and the problem: tools that enter the organization from below

Aim Security was founded in 2022 by Matan Getz (CEO) and Adir Gruss (CTO), according to Cato Networks' official announcement. Both are veterans of Unit 8200. The company was backed by investment from YL Ventures and Canaan Partners. Its platform was designed to let employees use AI assistants and model-based development tools without exposing the organization to risk, because tools like these enter the organization from below, when an employee installs an extension or a developer connects a coding assistant, and not through an orderly procurement process.

EchoLeak: its best-known research contribution

In June 2025 the company's researchers published a vulnerability called EchoLeak (identified as CVE-2025-32711) in Microsoft 365 Copilot. It was described as the first "zero-click" attack discovered against an AI assistant: an email message with hidden instructions caused the assistant to leak organizational information outside, without the user clicking on anything. Cato Networks' official announcement of the acquisition also explicitly confirms the vulnerability, describing it as "the first reported CVE of a zero-click AI vulnerability in Microsoft 365 Copilot."

Funding before the acquisition

The company raised $10 million in a seed round in January 2024 and $18 million in a Series A in June of the same year, $28 million in total, and had about 30 employees.

The acquisition by Cato Networks, its first ever

On 3 September 2025 the Israeli company Cato Networks officially announced that it had acquired Aim Security, Cato's first-ever acquisition since its founding. The price was not officially disclosed; Calcalist estimated it at $300–350 million in cash and shares. According to the same announcement, Cato passed $300 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) that day, and extended its Series G round with another $50 million from Acrew Capital, for a total of $409 million. Shlomo Kramer, CEO and co-founder of Cato, was quoted: "AI transformation will eclipse digital transformation as the main force that will shape enterprises over the next decade."

Three capabilities the company brought to Cato

According to the official announcement, Aim's product covers three security use cases: securing employee use of public AI tools (discovering "shadow AI" usage and protecting interactions with tools such as Microsoft Copilot and Cursor); an "AI Firewall" that enforces security policies on internal AI applications and agents; and security posture management for the entire agentic development lifecycle, from training models to building custom agents.