Around the world, companies rely on Microsoft and Google Manage employee email accounts. However, keeping all those mailboxes secure is a business opportunity.
Proofpoint went public in 2012, and as businesses moved to the cloud, many adopted the company’s secure email gateway software as a precautionary measure. But private equity firm Thoma Bravo acquired Proofpoint in 2021, and another provider, Mimecast, went private in 2022.
and then generate AI took off. The popular technology gives hackers more ammunition and new tools for security companies promising to protect their customers from attacks.
Now, a new crop of companies is gaining traction in mature markets.
Investors value startup Material Security at $1.1 billion in a 2022 funding round. In August, Abnormal Security, which calls itself “AI native”, said, Valued at US$5.1 billion after a funding round mass strike and Wellington Management. On Thursday, Sublime Security, co-founded by U.S. Department of Defense cybersecurity veteran Josh Kamdjou, said it had raised a total of $60 million in funding.
Kamdjou, who is also the CEO of Sublime, has spent his career showing companies how he can break into their networks and avoid being thwarted by email security products. Then he decided to research a solution.
“I decided to build something to stop me as an attacker,” he said.
Business credit card issuer Brex has been using Material Google Mark Hillick, the startup’s chief information security officer, told CNBC that Brex changed the inbox after testing Sublime. Material allows many question emails to be sent, but Sublime does not, Hillick said.
“All they need is one person to click on it and they go from there,” he said, referring to the hackers. “That’s why false negatives are so dangerous.”
Abnormal Security is much larger than Material and Sublime, with annual revenue exceeding $200 million. Peter Firstbrook, vice president and distinguished analyst at industry research firm Gartner, said it is rapidly gaining market share.
He said some companies use Abnormal Security as an add-on for Mimecast or Proofpoint. For years, he said, businesses have asked Proofpoint to filter messages before sending them to Microsoft-based inboxes. age.
Blakes briefly looked at “Anomaly” but decided not to pursue it, Hilliker said.
“I don’t believe black box is a philosophy,” he said. “It reduces visibility, so I can’t see how Brex is going to be attacked. I can’t see what tactics or techniques are being used. With Sublime, I can do that.”
Hillick said that based on his experience, Sublime can better cover new threats. abnormal website It said its software “can detect hyper-personalized, never-before-seen attacks without traditional indicators of compromise.”
Even if companies pay extra for higher-level services, attacks can still get past the defenses of large email providers like Google and Microsoft, Sublime’s Kamdjou said.
“Basically, that’s why we’ve been so successful,” Kanju said. “We’re here to catch whatever they can’t catch.”
Representatives for Abnormal, Material, Microsoft, Mimecast and Proofpoint did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Mark Alley, an Alabama-based email security consultant, said the challenge for incumbents like Mimecast and Proofpoint is not losing customers but missing out on new business from younger companies using next-generation tools like Abnormal. But Kamdjou said some companies have switched from Mimecast and Proofpoint to Sublime.
Proofpoint seems to be aware of this challenge, obtained Last year, artificial intelligence startup Tessian. Proofpoint CEO Sumit Dhawan said in October that the company was close to Listed again. He said he sees interesting potential acquisition targets, but prices remain high.
Sublime lacks a billion-dollar valuation. different from many people Generously Valued Startupsit does not engage in high-profile marketing efforts and is not keen on cold calls.
Kamdjou said the startup did approach Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign but made no progress. In August, the campaign said a foreign opponent had Obtained documents After compromising their email system.
“We’re very lucky because most people hear about us through word of mouth,” Kanju said.
They can then explore Sublime’s capabilities by uploading emails to a free service called EML Analyzer, which uses artificial intelligence to predict whether a message is likely to be benign, suspicious or malicious. It identifies phrases that appear frequently in business email leak attempts.
Since Sublime has more funds at its disposal, the sales-light approach will not change.
“The idea is that we’re still going to invest a lot in research and development,” said co-founder Ian Thiel.
watch: Trump campaign says emails hacked: Here’s what you need to know
