AI Overview
The company you are referring to is Toka (also known as Toka Cyber), an Israeli cyber-intelligence firm capable of hacking into CCTV cameras and webcams to view live feeds, access past recordings, and alter video footage seamlessly without leaving a trace.
Key Facts About Toka
Founders: It was co-founded in 2018 by Ehud Barak (former Israeli Prime Minister) and Yaron Rosen (former Israel Defense Forces cyber chief).
Capabilities: Internal documents revealed by media investigations showed that Toka's software can locate security cameras within a designated area, alter live streams, and modify historical archives—effectively reshaping reality captured by the camera.
Clients: The company operates under the oversight of the Israeli Defense Ministry and exclusively sells its technology to state clients, intelligence bodies, and law enforcement agencies.
Backing: Backed by venture capital and tech investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse Ventures, Entrée Capital, Dell Technologies Capital, Capri Ventures, and Upfront Ventures.
Headquarters & Structure: Transitioned to a U.S.-based entity with its headquarters in Columbia, Maryland, while maintaining an ongoing subsidiary and operations in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Leadership: Gregg Smith serves as Global CEO (appointed September 2025/early 2026), alongside Kfir Waldman (Co-Founder and President/CEO of Israel) and Moty Zaltsman as CTO.
Core Capabilities and Mission
Products: Develops software and intelligence-gathering tools focused on digital forensics, force protection, signals intelligence (SIGINT), and Internet of Things (IoT) access.
Access Technology: Its platforms allow authorized agencies to locate, connect to, and monitor internet-connected devices, security cameras, and webcams, as well as review or alter live and recorded video feeds.
Client Base: Sells its software and cyber capacity-building services exclusively to national militaries, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement in the United States and allied Western nations.
Regulation: Operations are regulated and overseen by authorities including the U.S. Department of the Treasury and Israel’s Defense Export Control Agency.
Traditional approaches to targeting and tracking, counter-proliferation, and counterterrorism rely on expensive and, often, unavailable assets. Regardless of the mission, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts demand a modern approach to succeed in today’s conflicts – this is where Toka comes in.
Toka helps trusted governments keep citizens safe and defend against terror and crime by developing cutting-edge intelligence and force protection capabilities.
Toka Impact:
Increase Operational Capabilities
Reduce Friction and Risk
Support Strategic, Cyber, and Tactical Efforts
Lawful & Transparent Digital Intelligence Collection
Toka only works with militaries, homeland security organizations, intelligence, and law enforcement agencies in the United States and its closest allies. We regularly review this select list of countries, using outside assessments on a range of issues including civil liberties, rule of law, and corruption.
We comply with and are regulated by the United States Department of Treasury and Israel’s Defense Export Control Agency.
Israeli startup Toka, founded by ex-premier Ehud Barak and former cyber division head Yaron Rosen, has developed AI-powered software that allows governments to access and alter live or recorded surveillance footage without leaving traces. This technology raises serious human rights concerns, enabling potential falsification of evidence and misuse by authorities.[AI generated]
Why's our monitor labelling this an incident or hazard?
The software from Toka is an AI system because it involves sophisticated manipulation of video surveillance footage, likely using AI techniques for real-time and retrospective editing without detection. The event involves the use of this AI system by governments to alter video evidence, which can directly lead to violations of human rights and legal rights, such as wrongful incrimination and political misuse. These harms have already occurred or are ongoing given the software's deployment and use. Therefore, this qualifies as an AI Incident due to direct harm caused by the AI system's use.
Toka sells hacking technologies capable of finding, accessing and manipulating security and smart camera footage.
A human rights attorney raised alarm Monday over the expansion plans of Toka, an Israeli cyber firm that sells hacking technologies capable of finding, accessing, and manipulating security and smart camera footage.
Co-founded by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) cyber chief Yaron Rosen, Toka “sells technologies that allow clients to locate security cameras or even webcams within a given perimeter, hack into them, watch their live feed, and even alter it — and past recordings,” Haaretz reported, citing internal documents it obtained and reviewed with a technical expert.
The company, whose activities are overseen by the Israeli Defense Ministry, “was set up in 2018 and has offices in Tel Aviv and Washington,” Haaretz reported. “It works solely with state clients in government, intelligence bodies, and law enforcement agencies, almost exclusively — but not just — in the West. According to the internal documents, as of 2021, the company had contracts with Israel valued at $6 million, and had also planned an ‘expansion of existing deployment’ in Israel.”
Toka can tap into web-connected cameras found virtually everywhere — intersections, parking lots, malls, hotels, airports, and even homes. Haaretz compared the firm’s “cyberoffense” capabilities to the 2001 heist movie Ocean’s Eleven.
In that film, an “elite crew led by George Clooney and Brad Pitt hack the closed-circuit TV system of the Las Vegas casino vault they are trying to break into, diverting its feed to a mock safe they built in a nearby warehouse,” the outlet noted.
Haaretz continued:
Twenty years on, this is no longer the stuff of movies: Toka’s tech allows clients to do just that and more — not just diverting a live feed but also altering old feeds and erasing any evidence of a covert op.
Technical documents reviewed by an ethical hacker prove that Toka’s tech can alter both live and recorded video feeds — all without leaving any forensics or telltale signs of a hack (in contrast to NSO’s Pegasus spyware, or Intellexa’s Predator, which leave a digital fingerprint on targeted devices).
“These are capabilities that were previously unimaginable,” human rights lawyer Alon Sapir told the outlet. “This is a dystopian technology from a human rights perspective. Just its mere existence raises serious questions.”
“One can imagine video being manipulated to incriminate innocent citizens or shield guilty parties that are close to the system, or even just manipulative editing for ideological or even political purposes should it fall into the wrong hands,” said Sapir.
From a legal perspective, “intelligence collection is a sensitive issue,” Sapir explained. “Despite a lack of legislation, the police deploy mass surveillance means they may not be fully authorized to use: technology like the HawkEye system, which no one knew about until the media revealed its existence.”
While manipulated videos are inadmissible as evidence in Israeli courts, Sapir noted that “a scenario in which someone is accused of something and doesn’t know if the evidence presented against them is real or not is truly dystopian. The current law does not begin to address situations like these.”
People living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are especially vulnerable to abuse.
“Take for example the Blue Wolf facial recognition technology, used by the IDF to keep track of Palestinians,” said Sapir. “The West Bank is Israel’s defense establishment testing ground — and a scenario in which Toka’s tech is deployed unbeknownst to anyone is simply terrifying.”
“There have been cases in which video evidence helped refute false claims made by settlers and soldiers, and helped save innocent Palestinians from jail,” he added. “We’ve also seen cases in which video evidence has been tampered with in the past.”
Frightening new technology in the hands of government intelligence agencies has the ability to commandeer any smart camera and even “alter feeds” to manipulate both its audio and visuals — including past recordings, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
The Big Brother-like software — used by the nation’s intelligence agency Mossad — has been brokered since 2018 to global states by a former Israeli defense force cyber chief’s company, Toka.
But only recently has the true power of this superior hacking tool been revealed.
Its top secret clients have the “previously out-of-reach capabilities” to locate all security and web cameras in a given perimeter with the abilities to tap into the feeds to watch, hack or even doctor them — including previous footage — at their discretion, the paper reported.
Specifically, it can “transform untapped [Internet of things] sensors into intelligence sources” in the interest of “intelligence and operational needs,” according to 2021 internal company documents Haaretz obtained.
Additionally, these tools facilitate users to “discover and access security and smart cameras” that aid in assessing a “targeted area.” There is another piece of “access” tech known as “car forensics and intelligence” which can “wirelessly” geolocate vehicles as well.
The spy service — which has its pieces bundled together as a package deal — also boasts its capabilities to wipe or change footage in real time, referring to the practice as “masking of on-site activities” for “covert operations.”
“These are capabilities that were previously unimaginable,” human rights lawyer Alon Sapir said. “This is a dystopian technology from a human rights perspective. Just its mere existence raises serious questions.”
Sapir fears situations in which the government utilized technology can be abused.
“One can imagine video being manipulated to incriminate innocent citizens or shield guilty parties that are close to the system, or even just manipulative editing for ideological or even political purposes should it fall into the wrong hands,” he said.
A company spokesperson told Haaretz that “Toka conducts a rigorous, annual review and approval process that is guided by international indices of corruption, rule of law and civil liberties and aided by outside advisors with extensive and reputable expertise in anti-corruption practices.”
Cameras can be tapped into through new technology used by intelligence agencies.
The Toka rep added that its only clients are “the US and its closest allies … Toka does not sell to private clients or individuals.”
“Under no circumstances will our company sell our products to countries or entities sanctioned by the US Dept. of Treasury or disallowed by the Israeli Defense Export Control Agency – limiting our potential clientele to agencies in fewer than one-fifth of all countries in the world.”
Toka, which has offices in both Tel Aviv and Washington DC, has a planned “expansion of existing deployment” in its host nation, according to Haaretz.
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