A lot of our pc time is spent in an online browser, the place we examine emails, create paperwork, switch recordsdata, perform on-line banking, store or stream leisure. This leaves us susceptible to safety threats like phishing, identification theft and session hijacking, however many cybersecurity instruments have been created when the principle threats have been file viruses, worms and community assaults, mentioned Vivek Ramachandran, the cybersecurity entrepreneur and researcher who found the Cafe Latte assault.
To fight browser-based vulnerabilities, Ramachandran based SquareX. The Singapore-based cybersecurity startup introduced immediately it has raised $6 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia, which it’s going to use on R&D engineering and its go-to-market plans.
SquareX needs to function an alternative choice to present cybersecurity merchandise by being tailored for browser-based cloud SaaS instruments. It integrates with browsers as an extension and lets customers open hyperlinks and recordsdata in disposable browsers that function non permanent container sandboxes. The headless browsers run in SquareX’s information facilities so threats don’t attain customers’ computer systems and so they don’t want to fret about their private info being uncovered.
Earlier than launching SquareX, Ramachandran was the founding father of Pentester Academy, a cloud-based cybersecurity coaching startup that lets customers and enterprises examine how hackers break into their firm. Pentester Academy was acquired by INE in 2021.
SquareX founder Vivek Ramachandran
Ramachandran instructed TechCrunch that whereas working Pentester Academy, his clients complained about how typically their safety merchandise have been disabled by customers as a result of they acquired in the best way of their productiveness. For instance, somebody within the technique of receiving of an necessary Phrase doc from a contact would have that file flagged as malware and would find yourself disabling safety software program with the intention to view it. Because of this, Ramachandran realized that many safety merchandise are literally counterproductive as a result of they make folks much less seemingly to make use of them.
Because of this, he created SquareX, which doesn’t block entry to recordsdata or sources, even after they have been categorized as probably malicious. As an alternative, it makes use of its disposable browsers. Ramachandran mentioned SquareX is meant as a various to VPN, anti-virus, anti-malware and different endpoint safety options.
SquareX’s disposable browsers allow nameless shopping from any location. Customers can “dispose” of it at anytime, which suggests no information is retained and the browser session is destroyed and faraway from SquareX’s servers instantly. Ramachandran mentioned it’s safer and extra personal than incognito mode as a result of web sites the person visits or recordsdata they obtain don’t get saved of their pc.
“By creating disposable environments, SquareX ensures {that a} person’s identification and information is decoupled when accessing the web,” he added. “This ensures that even probably the most subtle web site trackers would fail to trace and log the customers actions and tie it to their identification.”
SquareX’s go-to-market technique will give attention to america, the UK and Asia first.
In a press release in regards to the funding, Anandamoy Roychowdhary, Surge accomplice at Sequoia Southeast Asia, mentioned, “The web world is about to get an entire lot worse because the AI revolution will get channeled in direction of constructing malicious code. Each cybersecurity answer out there may be solely probabilistically profitable in defending web customers, which isn’t of a lot consolation in the event that they get hacked and lose cash. SquareX is the primary answer we’ve seen that takes a 100% safety strategy–the place regardless of how new and complex the assault is, it has no probability to contaminate customers. That is the long run we expect all web customers deserve.”