Cybersecurity has seen the need to strengthen itself through new methods and various mechanisms associated with practices that take artificial intelligence into account. This means that, nowadays, attackers will make use of AI to penetrate any type of system by finding its vulnerabilities. Consequently, the cybersecurity team will also look for clues to prevent such incidents.
In order to be aware of the new methods that attackers use as well as to have a dimension of how serious an attack can be, one company is obtaining significant funding to counter the possibility of these attacks ending up in favor of cybercriminals. To do this, the focus should be on a system that can make available to a whole team of cybersecurity professionals, the relevant tests or simulations that can cover, as far as possible, all possibilities.
Pentera is probably one of the cybersecurity companies that has attracted the attention of its investors with great enthusiasm. The approach is to offer a system that is able to perform automated validation simulations, through penetration tests in which direct attacks can be detected, without running a real risk due to how its architecture is built. This Boston-based company, founded in Tel Aviv, secured a major Series D funding of $60 million. This will be used for the purpose of product development through mergers and acquisitions.
According to Pentera's CEO, Amitai Ratzon, the software is aimed not only at companies, but also at the government sector. He also highlights the simplicity of the program, since it is possible to carry out a mega-attack on the administration itself, as well as to completely undo it, which happens in a secure environment based on its own design.
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What they are trying to do is to make the simulations as similar as possible to what happens in real life. So the aim is that these practices even alert the rest of the organization, which is very well reflected in how a real attack happens, which can become unsuspecting and silent. This behavior, taken into account, could be a great advantage using both Pentera's master program and those who align themselves with these practices, learn and apprehend them, so as to combat them in time.
Pentera's construction is superbly devised. If we take into account the advance of AI with respect to automation, it is likely that an attack could generate an astonishing 10,000 alerts, which could lead to a system in a given area of an organizational network being breached. This software not only manages to identify which ones could be exploited, but it is also possible to reduce this large number of alerts to a minimum of 6 or 8 critical vulnerabilities, which results in the report to the cybersecurity team so that they can manage the attack.
Richard Seewald, Managing Partner of Evolution Equity Partners, has strongly stated that Pentera has changed the outlook for enterprise security testing and validation practices for the better. He added that Pentera's growth has positively impacted enterprise adoption and innovation, and the company is considered a leader in Automated Security Validation, with a view to expanding its technology growth around the world. At this point we could say that it has been a really wise investment.
The demand for Pentesting tools has been increasing recently, reflecting the need to adapt to the current challenges, enhanced by AI. For this reason, Pentera has managed to increase its number of customers by 200% in 1,100 organizations, with a 300% ARR increase in the last four years.
The financing round is led by Evolution Equity Partners, with the addition of Farallon Capital's participation. According to PitchBook, the company had previously raised $190 million through the sum of primary and secondary capital. The presence of investors such as Insight, K1 and Blackstone also appears. Undoubtedly, the security validation industry is keeping Pentera very much in mind, due to its potential for the future, which is indisputable.
- Main image created with Dream Lab (AI) in Canva.
- Information has been consulted from: techcrunch.com.
- Translated from spanish with DeepL.