Neon Cyber’s function is to maneuver the main focus of present cybersecurity from the infrastructure to the workforce.
The corporate emerged from stealth, September 16, after elevating seed funding from Austin-based Silverton Companions in April 2025.
A lot of cybersecurity’s mitigations had been designed years in the past to guard infrastructure and information, which was appropriate on the time. However firm use of the web has modified. Cloud computing and distant working have hastened the demise of the perimeter, and the arrival of AI has elevated the pace of assaults. The previous strategies now not work, but cybersecurity has not tailored its core protection.
The necessity now could be to maneuver safety nearer to the reason for insecurity – which is the workforce fairly than the infrastructure. It’s the workforce that’s phished and socially engineered into inflicting or permitting breaches; and AI is making each far more practical.
That is the premise behind Neon Cyber. “We imagine that securing the workforce is the lacking piece in in the present day’s cybersecurity applied sciences,” says Cody Pierce (co-founder and CEO). “For too lengthy, organizations have invested closely in infrastructure safety whereas leaving individuals uncovered.”
The method taken is to sit down within the browser and get between the workforce and nearly all threats. The browser is concurrently the first working instrument and a tough expertise to safe – it has turn out to be the de facto unprotected working system of the person. Neon’s function is to not restrain the person (which has been the most important method prior to now, including friction and interrupting work) however to guard the corporate from dangerous outcomes inadvertently brought on by the person by means of the browser, and on the similar time present visibility into the browser.
The answer is a browser extension. If deployed on managed gadgets, it’s impervious to person avoidance or disruption. “It takes about 5 minutes to deploy it throughout a corporation,” provides Pierce.
The extension’s phishing safety illustrates the platform’s operate. Present makes an attempt attempt to block malicious URLs accessed by means of the browser – however that’s a idiot’s errand given the depth and class of redirects now in use. It’s nearly not possible to create an inventory of URLs to dam. On the similar time, the standard of social engineering has turn out to be supercharged by AI.Commercial. Scroll to proceed studying.
As an alternative of blocking all the pieces, Neon follows the phish till it could actually determine whether or not to dam or enable. In some unspecified time in the future it might turn out to be assured that this can be a phish. “We make that call by means of the AI and behavioral algorithms constructed into the platform,” explains Pierce. The client is ready to configure the platform to mechanically block progress in actual time, or to challenge a pop-up warning to the person.
It isn’t merely a course of to guard the person from inflicting hurt. As a result of Neon is residing within the browser, it offers the corporate’s safety group a brand new depth of visibility offering an in depth forensic view of what occurs. If the platform is configured to easily warn the person of a phish, that warning might doubtlessly be ignored or missed, and malware downloaded.
“Let’s say your EDR catches the malware. Properly, we provide the full journey that that person took: that is the place the e-mail got here from, that is what the person clicked, these are the web sites the person visited – and this was the file that was downloaded. The analysts can reconstruct the whole course of, all the best way up and down the stack,” explains Pierce.
Mark St. John (co-founder and CTO) provides, “There may be nonetheless a large blind spot within the browser – whether or not it’s simply encapsulated visitors to and from, or the actions that happen inside the browser itself, and the responses that happen within the browser. We’re in a position to get all these little bits of telemetry as much as the operations groups and analysts so that they don’t need to cobble the data collectively from their completely different sources. We’re immediately on the authentic supply and we are able to present all of it.”
It is usually value noting the system has the potential to focus on the actions of a malicious insider merely by means of the visibility it supplies. “We’re bringing one thing new that may assist with insider threats due to the observability we offer,” feedback Pierce. “You may observe and perceive the intent of an motion, whether or not it’s doubtlessly malicious or not malicious. And you may see what information is being despatched out of the corporate, and the place it’s going.” The visibility supplied by Neon works in each instructions – offering the power to see malicious insiders in addition to exterior attackers.
Neon Cyber was based in April 2024, and is headquartered at Fort Price, Texas. Its co-founders are Cody Pierce and Mark St. John, who earlier based AlphaWave. AlphaWave was acquired by LookingGlass in June 2021.
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