A look at Tel Aviv-based Toka, which helps clients in government and intelligence agencies hack security cameras and alter live feeds and past recordings
Meet Toka, the Israeli cyber firm founded by Ehud Barak, that lets clients hack cameras and change their feeds - just like in Hollywood heist movies Tweets: @haaretzcom , @spyblog , @haaretzcom , @haaretzcom , @omerbenj , @marwasf , @omerbenj , and @evacide Tweets: @haaretzcom : 3/3 If the Mossad had the technology currently being provided by Israeli cyberfirm Toka 12 years ago, it's likely the hit squad would have never been identified, writes @omerbenj Read more about these “dystopian” hacking capabilities here 🔽🔽🔽 https://www.haaretz.com/... https://twitter.com/... @spyblog : #Toka cyber hacking firm targeting WiFi, Bluetooth, IoT, CCTV (including altering camera feeds and archives) and cars. Exactly the same dubious promise that they only sell to Israel & allies military & law enforcement, just like NSO group. https://www.haaretz.com/... https://twitter.com/... @haaretzcom : 2/3 A month later, the local police force stunned the world - and Israel - by painstakingly piecing together hours of closed-circuit TV footage. The videos were combed to trace the 30 Mossad assassins' steps and reveal their faces https://www.haaretz.com/... https://twitter.com/... @haaretzcom : 1/3 On January 10, 2010, Hamas' point man with the Iranians, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, was assassinated in Dubai https://www.haaretz.com/... https://twitter.com/... Omer Benjakob / @omerbenj : Toka's tech can alter live & recorded videos without leaving any telltale signs of a hack. Human rights lawyer @asapir says “These are capabilities that were previously unimaginable. This is a dystopian technology from a human rights perspective” https://www.haaretz.com/... https://twitter.com/... @marwasf : Revealed: A new Israeli hacking firm —co-founded by former Israel PM Ehud Barak—sells tools that can hack into a camera network, monitor its live feed, access its archive, and alter its footage without leaving any forensic trace. A criminal's dream tool. https://www.haaretz.com/.... Omer Benjakob / @omerbenj : SCOOP Meet Toka, an Israeli camera hacking firm set up by former PM Ehud Barak and the IDF's ex-cyber chief. It sells only to intel bodies and law enforcement and allows them to “access” and “alter” camera feeds https://www.haaretz.com/... Eva / @evacide : This seems bad. https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Toka extends a pattern Haaretz has documented for years: Israel's Unit 8200 alumni pipeline feeding startups that commercialize state-grade intrusion tools, and the country's role as an exporter of spying tools to regimes tracking dissidents. What distinguishes Toka is its target layer — not phones or messaging apps like Paragon's police hacking tools, but the physical camera networks cities and facilities rely on.
The company was co-founded by former PM Ehud Barak and the IDF's former cyber chief, and reportedly sells only to intelligence and law-enforcement agencies aligned with Israel. Haaretz's framing point is Dubai: had this capability existed during the Mahmoud al-Mabhouh operation, CCTV footage that identified the hit squad could allegedly have been altered without forensic traces.
First-order effects
- Government and intelligence clients gain the ability to rewrite live and archived camera feeds as an operational tool, directly undermining the evidentiary value of footage in any investigation touching a Toka customer.
- Ehud Barak and the IDF's former cyber chief are now commercially attached to feed-alteration capability, tying a former head of government to one of the most sensitive categories of offensive tooling.
Second-order effects
- CCTV vendors and IoT device makers face a new class of adversary — state buyers who treat camera fleets as intrusion targets rather than security assets — pressuring them toward tamper-evident recording and signed footage.
- Rivals in Israel's surveillance cluster compete by segmenting the attack surface: Paragon on encrypted messaging, Team Jorge-linked operators on telecom networks via figures like Andreas Fink, Toka on video — each carving out exclusive niches sold along alliance lines.
Third-order effects
- If video evidence can be silently altered by state actors, courts, journalists, and verification services must treat raw footage as untrusted input, shifting burden onto provenance and cryptographic attestation rather than possession of the recording.
- The pattern reinforces the structural critique of Israel's export regime: offensive capabilities developed inside the intelligence apparatus become private products whose spread is governed by geopolitical alignment rather than legal oversight.
The trend: Offensive cyber tooling is expanding from intercepting communications into corrupting physical sensor infrastructure, with Israeli firms selling these capabilities exclusively along geopolitical alliance lines.