Jay Kaplan, Author at Synack

Jay Kaplan

CEO and Co-founder of Synack

Jay Kaplan is CEO and Co-founder of Synack, the leading platform for human and agentic AI-powered penetration testing. Jay co-founded Synack in 2013 to deliver continuous security testing through a vetted, global network of researchers. Before launching Synack, he spent nearly a decade in cybersecurity roles at the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Security Agency, most recently as a Senior Cyber Vulnerability Analyst supporting counterterrorism-related intelligence operations. Jay was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Enterprise Technology and holds a B.S. and M.S. from George Washington University, where he studied under an NSA-funded fellowship.

Recent research

Jun 10, 2026 Nobody’s in the Cockpit: The Real Risk of Fully Autonomous AI Security Testing
AI-only pentesting floods teams with false positives and missed findings. Synack CEO Jay Kaplan on why human oversight isn’t optional, and what happens when nobody’s minding the machine.
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May 4, 2026 Sara AI Pentesting Is Now Generally Available: The Model Is Changing
Why the Traditional Pentesting Model Is No Longer Enough Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen the threat landscape evolve from opportunistic attackers, to organized cybercrime, to nation-state campaigns. Each shift forced security teams to adapt. What’s happening right now is different. AI models coming out of Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and X are rewriting the […]
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More research by Jay Kaplan

Apr 1, 2026 Why AI Alone Won’t Fix the Security Problem
Finding Value in the AI Noise Over the past year, the cybersecurity conversation has shifted hard toward AI. Walk through any conference and you’ll see it everywhere: agentic systems, autonomous testing, and machines operating at a scale that humans simply can’t match. A lot of that progress is real. At Synack, we’re investing heavily in […]
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Oct 14, 2025 Agentic AI Pen Testing: Speed at Scale, Certainty with Humans
As we prepare to introduce fully agentic pen testing modes at Synack, we’ve seen first‑hand how autonomous agents can expand coverage and compress cycle times. Agentic AI is clearly changing security testing for the better. But speed without judgment creates false confidence. The right model is AI‑first and human‑validated: let agents do the heavy lifting, […]
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Aug 11, 2025 The Future of Cyber Defense: A New Mentality for the AI Age
Jay Kaplan is Synack CEO and co-founder. During my time at the National Security Agency and the Department of Defense, I learned an underlying truth about conflict: you don’t win by building higher walls; you win with superior intelligence and superior speed. The principles of offense and defense that I applied to protect our nation’s […]
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Jan 28, 2022 4 Effective Vulnerability Management Tips for Security Leaders
From the SolarWinds Orion hack to the Kaseya ransomware attack, recent incidents have proven that a single vulnerability in a company’s product or supply chain can have a massive business and brand impact—potentially even posing a national security threat. Security leaders are under more pressure than ever to improve the speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of […]
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