Fig Safety emerges from stealth with $38M to assist security groups cope with change

For enterprises, with the ability to examine knowledge unlocks way more than new methods to generate profits. The trendy enterprise tech stack is mind-bogglingly complicated — it employs dozens of instruments that work collectively and break issues in uniquely other ways, which is why with the ability to analyze knowledge streams lets corporations perceive when, the place, and why issues break.

However security groups can’t wait till one thing’s damaged to repair it. To make use of a metaphor: an alarm that hasn’t gone off for some time can’t be trusted to be working. And the trendy security stack is so dense with instruments {that a} small change in a single device might have unpredictable downstream results which will compromise detection and response capabilities.

Fig Safety, a startup by veterans of Israel’s cyber and knowledge intelligence items 8200 and Mamram, claims to assist security groups cope with that by monitoring the security stack to see if their guidelines, mitigation instruments, and detection and response capabilities are functioning or skewed astray by modifications. The startup simply got here out of stealth with $38 million in seed and Collection A funding, information.killnetswitch has solely discovered.

In a nutshell, the startup’s tech traces knowledge flows within the security stack, from the origin at sources by knowledge pipelines and knowledge lakes to security orchestration and automation response platforms, after which alerts security groups when modifications at any level have an effect on detection or response capabilities. The platform additionally permits corporations to simulate how new fixes, patches, or modifications might have an effect on their system earlier than they’re deployed.

“As a substitute of trying on the knowledge and tracing it ahead and seeing the place it finally ends up, we take a look at your detections as a result of that’s the factor that it’s essential work,” Fig’s CEO and co-founder, Gal Shafir (pictured above, middle), defined to information.killnetswitch. “Detection or response is the only supply of fact, after which we back-trace the well being and what must occur on the information to ensure that it to set off the detection when one thing occurs. After which we alert [the security team] if one thing has an inconsistency in actual time.”

Shafir mentioned Fig does this by sampling an organization’s knowledge because it flows by totally different instruments within the infrastructure and understanding the way it modifications by the pipeline. This lets the corporate create a “knowledge lineage” that can be utilized to learn how any upstream modifications might break security instruments downstream in actual time.

The startup says it connects with knowledge hyperlinks and Safety Info and Occasion Administration (SIEM) techniques to do all of this, which lets its tech be used with security instruments and environments of all types.

Fig’s launch comes as enterprises evolve in actual time, particularly with C-suites being pressured to learn how AI-powered instruments may also help save prices, cut back human errors, and enhance effectivity. However the inflow of so many instruments has made the trendy security group’s life even more durable. What sort of defenses ought to a CISO prioritize? What’s the fitting security posture to take as hackers use AI to mount more and more refined assaults?

Shafir, who led Google Cloud Safety’s international structure group earlier than beginning Fig, says he noticed this uncertainty firsthand when assembly with prospects whereas pitching Google’s AI merchandise.

“The entire CISOs, whatever the group dimension or the security price range or the corporate dimension, had been saying, ‘Wait, I perceive that AI is basically cool, however I don’t know if I belief my detections proper now, how can I belief the AI that tells me that every little thing is okay tomorrow if I don’t belief the information beneath it?’” 

That led Shafir and his co-founders, Nir Loya Dahan (CPO), and Roy Haimof (CTO) to the conclusion that they might clear up security groups’ subject with understanding what’s occurring on the bottom.

“That was the second that we mentioned, okay, there’s an enormous downside that individuals perceive that exists, however there is no such thing as a resolution as a result of there’s so many distributors and sophisticated infrastructure, nearly by nature. That was the second for us to cease what we did and give up and go to construct Fig,” Shafir mentioned.

Shafir says since launching 8 months in the past, Fig now has massive enterprise prospects within the “low double-digits,” and expects that quantity to develop to 50 to 100 by the tip of the 12 months.

The startup will use the contemporary money to develop in North America and triple its headcount throughout engineering and go-to-market features.

Buyers within the funding rounds embody Team8 and Ten Eleven Ventures, in addition to security professionals together with Doug Merritt (former CEO of Splunk), Rene Bonvanie (former CMO of Palo Alto Networks), and the founders of Demisto and Siemplify.