Hackers hired to help companies discover internal security threats may soon be out of a job.
Just ask IDG Ventures India, which pumped $2.5 million into iViz Tech Solutions, an Indian startup that promises on-demand software that does penetration testing, or simulated attacks on systems, to detect network weaknesses much in the way a hacker would.
Incubated in one of India's top technology institutes in 2005, iViz develops artificial intelligence-based products that simulate an intelligent hacker to detect the security flaws in a system or network and suggest corresponding remedies.
Company co-founders Bikash Barai and Nilanjan De, graduates of the Indian Institute of Technology–Kharagpur, say that iViz uses an innovative technology that determines the threat in a network, finds the complex multi-stage attack paths that cannot be detected by normal tools and comes up with solutions for such attacks.
The traditional manual testing approach relies on the output of numerous tools combined with the intelligence or expertise of the security expert. However, this approach is not enough to determine all multi-stage attack possibilities in a complex network. iViZ conducts the tests in a similar, yet more efficient manner, than the top security experts by using its artificial intelligence-based technology that can find almost all possible attack paths.
"We started off in 2005 with a small sum of money raised from selling my paintings and Nilanjan's research scholarship,"' said Barai. "In the same year, we received $1,000 pilot project from U.S.-based eRevMax Technologies, a leader in revenue management system for the online hotel industry. They were so taken up with our technology that they finally ended up being an angel investor,” he said.
With this initial investment, the company was able to build a 15-member team and take its product to the market. Today, iViz provides remote testing services on a subscription basis and can be deployed for hosted applications like e-commerce websites where data integrity is not only essential but is an integral part of the business.
Some of iViz's customers include the International Credit Rating Agency (ICRA); KPIT Cummins; Games2win; and the Times of India group with its leading Indiatimes.com website.
Sudhir Sethi, chairman and managing director of IDG Ventures India, said: "We usually invest in India-based disruptive software product firms which have a potential to scale globally. iViz is addressing a $10 billion global market with an annual growth rate of over 18 percent."
iViZ plans to utilize the investment to build its sales team in North America, Europe, Middle East/APAC and India and to significantly enhance its product development initiatives, according to an IDG Ventures release issued last month.
iViz, recognized as one of the Asia's top 5 security startups in the Global Security Challenge held by London Business School in September 2007, competes with global players like KPMG and Ernst & Young in the ethical hacking space, or penetration testing.
Red Herring's Sufia Tippu reported from Bangalore.