Need to know the way cyber attackers will goal your organisation’s IT methods and networks? The most effective individual to ask might nicely be somebody who has spent their skilled life launching such assaults. Enter Anand Prakash, the co-founder and CEO of PingSafe, a Singapore-based enterprise which is at this time asserting a $3.3 million seed funding spherical.

Prakash has spent a lot of the previous 10 years working as a “white hat” hacker – a hacker paid to attempt to infiltrate organisations’ cyber defences so as to check them for vulnerabilities. “I began in school after I heard a few pal who was paid to seek out bugs in Fb’s methods, which seemed like enjoyable,” he remembers. “Inside a few years, I used to be one in every of Fb’s top-ranked bug hunters, and I used to be additionally working for corporations resembling Uber and Twitter.”

Even the most important and most technology-savvy companies have weaknesses they don’t learn about, says Prakash who arrange PingSafe with co-founder Nishant Mittal. He factors to a bug at Fb that might have enabled him to entry a number of consumer accounts, and a flaw at Uber that might have meant him by no means paying for a experience once more. “I might see a really clear hole available in the market,” Prakash provides. “These companies have been taking cyber safety very severely however folks have been nonetheless discovering points.”

Particularly, Prakash factors to the expansion of cloud computing, now the default choice for organisations as they construct out IT infrastructure, as driving vulnerabilities. Cloud deployments give everybody within the organisation freedom to alter its IT methods and lengthen its footprint – by means of software-as-a-service subscriptions, for instance. That makes it a lot tougher to place sturdy cyber safety protections in place.

PingSafe has due to this fact been arrange as a cloud-native utility safety platform – a CNAPP within the business jargon – with Prakash billing the corporate as “the primary to attempt to clear up this drawback with an offensive method”. By means of its platform, PingSafe targets clients’ methods utilizing the techniques and methods employed by hackers, trying to find weaknesses {that a} unhealthy actor might exploit. As soon as these vulnerabilities are uncovered PingSafe advises the consumer on learn how to repair them. The testing then continues in actual time, with PingSafe always updating its assault strategies according to intelligence from the hacker group.

“Each organisation is in danger due to cloud misconfigurations, however different safety options received’t essentially choose them up,” Prakash provides. “Our platform can sit alongside the opposite cyber safety merchandise that the organisation is utilizing.”

Prakash’s fame within the white hat group gave the enterprise a headstart, with PingSafe launching in March 2022 with 10 early adopter purchasers. Revenues have grown 10 occasions since then, with the corporate now working with greater than 60 enterprise clients. “These are cloud native corporations for whom safety is completely vital,” Prakash provides.

Robust testimonials from purchasers have helped with progress. “PingSafe’s CNAPP platform is considerably much less noisy and its alerts are extra actionable as in comparison with options,” says Daniel Wong, chief data safety officer at expertise enterprise Skyflow. Hari Palappetty, vp of engineering at expertise enterprise Close to Intelligence factors to “its functionality to offer proof of exploitability” as a key function.

Buyers have additionally take a eager curiosity within the enterprise, pointing to the potential for speedy progress within the cloud safety sector. Analysis from Market and Market estimates that the CNAPP business was price round $8 billion final yr, however forecasts 20% annual progress within the years to return.

PingSafe’s seed spherical sees it choose up exterior funding for the primary time. The spherical was led by Sequoia Capital India & Southeast Asia’s Surge scale-up program, with participation from quite a lot of outstanding angel traders.

A kind of angels, Rahul Chari, the co-founder of PhonePe, says: “As organisations develop and scale functions within the cloud, holistic cloud safety administration is vital to make sure resilience in opposition to threats and breaches – PingSafe’s group is very motivated and has the fitting market expertise to make PingSafe a pacesetter on this house.”

The funding is earmarked for additional funding in PingSafe’s product improvement, however the firm can be investing in an elevated presence within the US, with Prakash attributable to relocate there shortly.