A lot of our pc time is spent in an internet browser, the place we verify emails, create paperwork, switch information, perform on-line banking, store or stream leisure. This leaves us susceptible to safety threats like phishing, id theft and session hijacking, however many cybersecurity instruments have been created when the primary threats have been file viruses, worms and community assaults, stated 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 right this moment it has raised $6 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital Southeast Asia, which it should 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 information in disposable browsers that function momentary container sandboxes. The headless browsers run in SquareX’s knowledge 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 research how hackers break into their firm. Pentester Academy was acquired by INE in 2021.
SquareX founder Vivek Ramachandran
Ramachandran advised 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 obtained in the way in which of their productiveness. For instance, somebody within the technique of receiving of an essential Phrase doc from a contact would have that file flagged as malware and would find yourself disabling safety software program to be able to view it. In consequence, Ramachandran realized that many safety merchandise are literally counterproductive as a result of they make individuals much less probably to make use of them.
In consequence, he created SquareX, which doesn’t block entry to information or sources, even after they have been categorized as doubtlessly malicious. As a substitute, it makes use of its disposable browsers. Ramachandran stated SquareX is meant as a different to VPN, anti-virus, anti-malware and different endpoint safety options.
SquareX’s disposable browsers allow nameless looking from any location. Customers can “dispose” of it at anytime, which implies no knowledge is retained and the browser session is destroyed and faraway from SquareX’s servers instantly. Ramachandran stated it’s safer and extra personal than incognito mode as a result of web sites the consumer visits or information they obtain don’t get saved of their pc.
“By creating disposable environments, SquareX ensures {that a} consumer’s id and knowledge 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 id.”
SquareX’s go-to-market technique will concentrate on the US, the UK and Asia first.
In a press release concerning the funding, Anandamoy Roychowdhary, Surge associate at Sequoia Southeast Asia, stated, “The net world is about to get a complete lot worse because the AI revolution will get channeled in the direction of constructing malicious code. Each cybersecurity resolution 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 resolution we’ve seen that takes a 100% safety strategy–the place no matter how new and complex the assault is, it has no probability to contaminate customers. That is the longer term we predict all web customers deserve.”
