Zafran is known as the first and only consolidated platform that integrates with your security tools to reveal, remediate, and mitigate the risk of exposures across your entire infrastructure. And Zafran uses an agentless approach to reveal what is truly exploitable, while reducing manual prioritization and remediation through automated response workflows.Pulse 2.0 interviewed Zafran co-founder and chief product officer (CPO) Snir Havdala to learn more about the company.
Snir Havdala’s Background
Snir Havdala – Credit: Eric Sultan
What is Snir Havdala’s background? Havdala said:
“I co-founded Zafran in 2022 as the CPO, with Sanaz Yashar as CEO and Ben Seri as CTO. My cybersecurity journey began in the Israeli Army’s elite Talpiot program, followed by 11 years in the 8200 Intelligence Unit, where I led the vulnerabilities department specializing in vulnerability assessment. This role provided me with extensive experience in vulnerability research and development, which I utilized while building Zafran.”
Formation Of Zafran
How did the idea for the company come together? Havdala shared:
“A critical incident at an Israeli healthcare facility, which we (the founders) witnessed firsthand, spurred the founding of Zafran. In this case, there was an exploitation of a known vulnerability that was not remediated in time—but could have been easily mitigated with existing compensating controls in a matter of seconds. That highlighted the need for a platform that can efficiently address vulnerabilities with existing compensating tools and help organizations comprehensively understand their security posture. This hospital incident ultimately inspired us to build a solution to this problem.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Havdala and the team face in building the company? Havdala acknowledged:
“A major challenge in launching Zafran was creating a new category from scratch. We began by identifying which vulnerabilities needed immediate attention, synthesizing scattered data across various tools to provide actionable insights, thus allowing organizations to streamline their security processes. As we delved deeper into product development and market fit, we realized the significant demand for our product in the entirely new field of mitigation within the security industry.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Havdala explained:
“The Zafran Threat Exposure Management Platform is the first and only consolidated platform that integrates with your security tools to reveal, remediate, and mitigate the risk of exposures across your entire infrastructure. The platform is designed to work seamlessly with EDR, firewalls, cloud tools, and more, enabling organizations to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of their risk. Zafran Applicable Risk™ indicates whether vulnerabilities are exploitable or already mitigated by compensating controls, then proactively automates mitigations to eliminate the exploitation window.”
Evolution Of Zafran’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Havdala noted:
“We’ve recently introduced Proactive Exposure Hunting, which presents a new chapter in automated mitigation playbooks. Zafran employs an agentless approach, seamlessly integrating with your existing security tools to generate your exposure graph. This graph connects the dots between your assets, vulnerabilities, identity exposures, control gaps, and the mitigations provided by your existing security controls. As a result, for the first time, security teams can identify the highest-risk exposures and deploy automated responses, transforming the way they manage and mitigate threats.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Havdala about customer success stories, he highlighted:
“For a Fortune 50 healthcare company, Zafran’s platform recalibrated the severity of 93% of critical vulnerabilities to lower levels by integrating compensating controls. This transformation not only secured their systems more effectively but also optimized their operational efficiency, demonstrating Zafran’s impact on real-world cybersecurity challenges.”
Funding
When asking Havdala about the company’s funding details, he revealed:
“Zafran raised $70 million from notable investors such as Sequoia and Cyberstarts and already boasts customers that include Fortune 100 companies. This funding and customer base underscore our market credibility and the trust that major corporations place in our solutions to protect their digital assets.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Havdala affirmed:
“The Zafran Threat Exposure Management Platform not only showcases the effectiveness of your security tools but also provides distinctive mitigation strategies. This approach streamlines the management of the numerous security tools that companies typically operate and significantly enhances the effectiveness of your existing cybersecurity measures. As a result, it allows companies to allocate more resources to their core business activities.”
Future Goals
What is next for Zafran? Havdala concluded:
“We’re rapidly expanding, focusing on extensive research and product development to preemptively close exploitation windows and enhance security for our customers. The future for Zafran includes further geographic expansion and deeper integration with AI technologies to refine our threat prediction and response capabilities.”
