Step into any business where there’s even a remote threat of a crime being committed, and you’re likely to see a security camera. If you think about it, just about everywhere is monitored by cameras these days: intersections, banks, gas stations, schools, bars — you name it. It makes a lot of sense too. A camera is an inexpensive way not only to deter would-be criminals, but also to help police figure out what happened after a crime. But, perhaps one of the most at-risk assets a company owns, is its computer network. That’s where ProtectWise comes in.
“Existing security software is myopic. It looks once to see if a package, email, URL or whatever is a threat, and then doesn’t look again.” ProtectWise Founder and CTO Gene Stevens said. “And given the fact that attacks are executed over long windows, we are certainly not well served by the existing architecture.”
To solve this problem, ProtectWise created a one-stop solution to network security, and a big part of that is their Cloud Network DVR system. Basically, the company has come up with a virtual camera in the cloud that records everything happening on your network. While the nitty gritty quickly gets incredibly complex and technical, the simple explanation is that ProtectWise’s software allows security professionals to not only see threats in real time, but to also go back in time and discover previously unknown attacks to the system.
“Right now, responders are managing a fragmented mess. That means they’re on the defensive most of the time, just trying to keep up,” Stevens said. “They don’t hunt, because fundamentally they’re outmatched. Your local IT team doesn’t necessarily have the same patience, resources or drive as their attackers do. The legacy network security solutions just aren’t designed for modern problems.”
A large part of the value of any security system is in how the system enables you to actually see and understand what’s happening. To make sense of the massive data sets that their system collects, ProtectWise reached out to Hollywood to make visualizations. The creative design of the software (see the image above) was done by Jake Sargeant’s, the guy behind the stunning visualizations in films like Tron Legacy and Terminator Salvation.
Of course, all of this is brand new, with the product having just been publically released in March. Previous to that, ProtectWise spent two years developing in stealth, raising $17 million in two rounds.
