ProtectWise, which specialises in providing cloud security services, has exited stealth mode and announced it has secured $17m. The company, which was founded by former McAfee executives Scott Chasin and Gene Stevens, said it will use the funding to expand its sales and marketing efforts.
ProtectWise offers what it’s essentially calling a “cloud network DVR” that the company says can recall and analyse traffic going back weeks, months and even years in a bid to uncover any threats.
“By creating a network memory in the cloud, we’re able to provide a time machine for threat detection,” said Stevens, the company’s chief technology officer. “It automatically replays and analyzes stored network traffic whenever new threats emerge to uncover threats that were previously unknown. This makes it possible to continuously analyze what we observe in the past and the present together to refine and reveal the threats that matter most.”
It also applies machine learning algorithms in conjunction with a number of commercial intelligence feeds to generate a broad security posture overview of a company’s digital services.
Some of the company’s early customers (it claims over a dozen overall) include the Enterprise Strategy Group and Universal Music Group.
“Enterprises today are grappling with Defense in Doubt,” said Chasin, the company’s chief executive officer. “The traditional defence in depth approach has left security professionals with a costly daisy chain of endpoint solutions that provide only a point-in-time view of threats and emit a tidal wave of security alarms with no context or correlation across solutions. By shifting network security to the cloud, we make it possible to leave this outdated, ineffective model of enterprise network security behind.”
Cloud security firms have attracted significant funding over the past couple of years, a testament to a growing shift towards cloud services. Earlier this month cloud security provider Elastica announced it had secured $30m in series B funding, a year after the firm exited stealth mode and announced its first investment round.