Oligo Taps AI Security Vet to Lead Product in Runtime Protection Push

TEL AVIV, Israel – January 15, 2026 – In a move signaling a strategic deepening of its product leadership, runtime security firm Oligo Security has appointed Shira Bendkowski as its new Vice President of Product. The appointment comes as the cybersecurity industry grapples with the dual challenges of overwhelming alert fatigue and the nascent, complex threats emerging from artificial intelligence applications.

Bendkowski will now helm the product vision and execution for the Tel Aviv-based company, which has been gaining significant traction for its approach to active, real-time application protection. Her move to Oligo is seen by industry watchers as a significant indicator of the growing importance of runtime security, a domain that aims to protect applications while they are actively executing, rather than just scanning their code before deployment.

A Strategic Hire in a High-Stakes Talent War

The competition for top-tier cybersecurity talent is fierce, and executive movements often signal where the industry's focus and venture capital are heading. Bendkowski's resume places her squarely at the forefront of modern cloud and AI security innovation. She joins Oligo from Aqua Security, a major player in the cloud-native security space, where she served as VP of Product, leading efforts in cloud runtime protection and AI security. Before that, she built and led the product group at XM Cyber, concentrating on cloud security posture management.

This background makes her a critical asset for Oligo. “Shira’s proven domain expertise across cloud, workload, and runtime protection is a perfect fit for the world we’re building at Oligo,” said Nadav Czerninski, co-founder and CEO of Oligo Security, in the company's official announcement. “Oligo is leading the shift to a new paradigm where security happens at runtime, delivering real-time, active protection against real-world threats. Standout product leaders like Shira are exactly the kind of talent needed to drive that transformation.”

Her appointment underscores a broader trend: the migration of seasoned leaders from established, broad-platform security companies to more specialized, technologically focused firms that are solving a specific, difficult problem. This move validates Oligo's technology and its position as a disruptive force in the application security market.

Beyond Passive Scanning: A New Paradigm in Protection

For years, security teams have been inundated with alerts from tools that scan codebases for theoretical vulnerabilities. This approach, while valuable, creates a significant operational burden, as teams struggle to determine which of the thousands of flagged issues pose a genuine, immediate risk. Many flagged vulnerabilities exist in code libraries that are never actually used or executed in the production environment, leading to wasted time and resources.

Oligo's central thesis is to shift the focus from what could be a problem to what is a problem. The company's platform is designed to provide security based on what actually happens at runtime. By observing application behavior in real-time, it can identify which vulnerabilities are truly exploitable because they are present in actively running code. This precision allows organizations to cut through the alert noise and prioritize the most critical threats.

“After meeting with Oligo’s leadership team and seeing firsthand how uniquely they’re approaching runtime security, it was a no-brainer to join,” Bendkowski stated. “Oligo’s runtime sensor is the most technically advanced in the industry, enabling deep protection capabilities that simply aren’t possible with other approaches.”

This active defense model extends beyond just vulnerability prioritization. By understanding normal application behavior, the platform can detect and surgically block malicious activity as it happens, offering a layer of protection against both known exploits and novel, zero-day attacks that traditional signature-based tools would miss. This represents a move from passive visibility to active, real-time protection that can stop an attack in its tracks without taking entire systems offline.

Confronting the New Frontier of AI Security

The timing of Bendkowski's appointment is particularly crucial as Oligo extends its runtime security paradigm to the rapidly expanding world of AI. As organizations increasingly integrate Large Language Models (LLMs) and other AI agents into their core applications, they are exposing themselves to a new class of vulnerabilities that traditional security tools are ill-equipped to handle.

Threats such as prompt injection, model poisoning, and sensitive data exfiltration from AI models present unique challenges. Industry bodies are taking notice, with organizations like the Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) releasing its Top 10 for LLM Applications and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) publishing its AI Risk Management Framework. This signals a market-wide scramble to understand and mitigate these new risks.

Oligo recently extended its platform to protect AI applications, models, and agents, applying its runtime principles to this new frontier. By monitoring the inputs and outputs of AI models in real-time, the company aims to detect and block malicious prompts or prevent models from leaking confidential data. Bendkowski's recent experience leading AI security product efforts at Aqua Security positions her perfectly to spearhead this critical expansion of Oligo's capabilities, translating a complex technological challenge into a robust enterprise solution.

Validated Momentum in a Crowded Market

Oligo's claims of growth are backed by significant third-party validation and investor confidence. The company has raised substantial capital, including a $20 million Series A and a $50 million Series B, demonstrating strong belief in its mission to secure applications from within. This financial backing is crucial for competing in a market populated by cybersecurity giants like Palo Alto Networks and Wiz.

Furthermore, the firm has collected a series of prestigious accolades. It was named to the Fortune Cyber 60, a list curated by Fortune, Lightspeed, and AWS to recognize the world's most impressive and fast-growing cyber companies. It was also recognized as a SINET16 Innovator, an award judged by over 100 CISOs and risk executives. Adding to this, the practitioner-focused analyst firm Latio named Oligo a leader in cloud security in its 2025 Cloud Security Market Report.

These honors serve as powerful market signals, validating that Oligo's focused approach to runtime security is not just a niche interest but a solution resonating with both industry experts and enterprise buyers. With the addition of Shira Bendkowski to its leadership team, Oligo is reinforcing its commitment to product innovation and appears poised to further solidify its leadership in defining the future of active, runtime-based security for modern applications and the burgeoning AI ecosystem.