Tel Aviv-based Malanta goals to shift breach-detection left into attack-prevention by detecting and stopping assaults earlier than they occur.
The cybersecurity startup has raised $10 million in seed funding in a spherical led by Cardumen Capital with participation from The Group Ventures (TGV). Angel traders within the pre-seed stage embody Udi Mokady (founder and govt chairman of CyberArk); Benny Schneider; and Harel Prag and Amit Greener common companions at Rollout Ventures.
The seed cash will probably be used to additional develop Malanta’s engineering and ‘go to market’ efforts, and to enhance its capacity to detect what it calls indicators of pre-attack (IoPA). Discovering these indicators culminates within the capacity to detect adversary infrastructure, C&C servers and phishing kits in growth; and block and dismantle them earlier than they’re used.
The platform collects and analyzes what it calls the digital breadcrumbs that attackers depart behind whereas making ready their campaigns, and it then forecasts how and when they are going to be weaponized. Kobi Ben Naim, co-founder and CEO of Malanta, explains: “Malanta tracks attacker behaviors across the assault infrastructure setup. Attackers, each human and AI brokers (we name them AI.Attackers), purchase infrastructure equivalent to domains, SSL certificates, and servers, they usually create e-mail addresses and social accounts, code repositories and different digital belongings. These belongings are used to arrange the assault assets wanted to launch assaults. It’s what MITRE ATTACK Framework refers to as Useful resource Improvement within the Pre-Assault section of each assault. Throughout this setup course of they depart their footprints. Monitoring this course of and having the ability to affiliate a footprint to a malicious entity is a Malanta core patented innovation.”
For every new buyer, Malanta instantly maps and discovers its digital belongings. These belongings are correlated with the found and analyzed adversary infrastructures to find out whether or not the consumer is below imminent risk from an attacker. However the service goes past the easy provision of one other alert stream or pentesting service by indicating not that the consumer may very well be below risk, however that the consumer is below risk. The consumer is then suggested on what steps must be taken to safeguard its belongings from the upcoming risk.
“On common,” claims the corporate, “we’re uncovering IoPAs weeks earlier than they develop into malicious and are detected as IOCs by different distributors. Which means we’re in a position to inform our clients typically months earlier than they’re utilized in an assault or marketing campaign. At that time, it’s as much as the client whether or not they act or look forward to one thing to happen.”
However Malanta doesn’t limit its actions to advance warnings to clients. “We work with registrars to takedown domains that are a part of a malicious infrastructure that targets a buyer. We work with ‘Secure Shopping’ providers to dam entry,” expands Ben Naim.
A frequent query on this new age of AI is whether or not defenders can hold tempo with the AI-assisted tempo of attackers, and, by extension, whether or not Malanta can do the identical. The velocity with which attackers can construct new infrastructure is an growing drawback; however one which doesn’t overly concern Ben Naim. “The primary change we see up to now two years is an uplift in the usage of AI through the very first phases of assault – pre-attack recon and useful resource growth,” he feedback.
Malanta mirrors the best way attackers use AI. “We don’t have people within the loop,” says the agency. “As an alternative, we leverage AI to be as autonomous as potential, which permits our platform to quickly scale and work in the identical approach fashionable attackers do. We have now automated unknown asset discovery from the AI.Attacker’s view, and we offer machine‑velocity disruption at web scale.”Commercial. Scroll to proceed studying.
Ben Naim is assured that Malanta’s personal use of AI will guarantee its fast detection of legal belongings will keep the agency’s capacity to remain forward of the attackers. It’s a formidable imaginative and prescient backed by sizable seed funding – to forestall assaults earlier than they happen.
Malanta was based in Tel Aviv in July 2024 by Kobi Ben Naim (CEO), Man Ben Arie (head of engineering), Yossi Dantes (CPO), and Tal Kandel (CBO). All 4 met whereas beforehand working for CyberArk.
Associated: AI Safety Agency Polygraf Raises $9.5 Million in Seed Funding
Associated: HyperBunker Raises Seed Funding to Launch Anti-Ransomware System
Associated: SafeHill Emerges from Stealth With $2.6 Million Pre-Seed Funding
Associated: Echo Raises $15M in Seed Funding for Vulnerability-Free Container Photographs
