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An Untapped Frontier in An Important Area in Cyber
Written by Avery E. Schwartz - Partner
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Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a critical component in any organization’s security stack. Properly leveraged, IT managers can fully control access permissions per user per resource, strengthening overall security posture and combatting unauthorized access to sensitive data.
Organizations and enterprises in the past years have evolved to accommodate hybrid work models, shifting assets from on-premises to the cloud, presenting a slew of difficulties in handling sensitive assets that have placed additional onus on IAM security measures. Research indicates that 78% of organizations have been victim to an identity-related security breach.
Companies typically maintain a number of distinct identity stores – application identity cloud, on-prem directory, cloud directory (several in multi-cloud), privileged access management, VPNs, and more.
Each solves for critical security features, but with each additional silo the challenge of end-user threat visibility increases exponentially as these providers enable security controls solely for their own environment.
This status quo deprives users of a unified view of activity across all entry-points in any organizational infrastructure, leading to a lack of visibility in malicious access attempts.
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Enter Silverfort: Pioneers of Unified Identity Security
Silverfort’s Unified Identity Threat Protection Platform is the first solution which secures organizations by taking in the full telemetry of identity-based activity across identity stores and other relevant data (monitoring 20x-50x more data than any other risk-based authentication solution), and then applying AI to detect threats and stop lateral movement in real time.
The platform integrates with all existing IAM solutions, and continuously monitors access of all users and service accounts across both cloud and on-premise environments, analyzing risk in real time using an AI-based engine, and enforcing adaptive authentication and access policies.
Perhaps most impressive is the company’s agentless and proxyless technology which analyzes encrypted authentication and authorization messages in real-time – without decrypting them, and without the need for any encryption keys or privileges.
This provides a key missing piece in enabling 360 degree protection and threat intelligence, unlocking true Zero Trust framework IAM protection to legacy applications and machine to machine communications.
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Timing is Everything – The Rise of ITDR
Shortly after we signed the term sheet, Gartner issued a report coining the term Identity Threat Detection and Response, or ITDR, which finally gave a name to the category responsible for tackling the growing security problem Silverfort has been building a best-in-class solution for during the past several years.
While the Gartner category should lead to increased mindshare and budget for such solutions, it is also a validation of the vision Silverfort’s leadership stewarded the organization towards. The cost of lacking end-to-end identity threat protection will only continue to intensify, with compromised credentials being leveraged in 80% of all data breaches and ransomware campaigns.
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Cultivating Growth – A Fort on The Offensive
We are beyond excited to announce our partnership with Silverfort in leading their Series C.
Our thematic focus on the identity space and institutional knowledge in cybersecurity (with prior investments in Guardicore, Avanan, Cynet, and Panorays) put us in a great position to appreciate Silverfort’s attractive positioning in the market.
We believe that we are investing in the midst of an inflection point where the offering that Silverfort is pioneering will eventually be table stakes for security organizations, and Silverfort is in prime position to capture the momentum both as first mover and as deepest technological solution. This is already evident in the company’s stellar growth over the course of 2021.
We have known co-founder and CEO Hed Kovetz for more than 3 years and are both wowed by the trajectory of the business as well as grateful to be chosen to join the journey in this funding round.
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The Road Ahead
We cannot wait to get to work in support of the business and do our part to contribute to the optimal growth of Silverfort as it scales significantly in the coming years.
Already, the company has gathered a force of C-level executives, cemented a solid foundation of technological alliances, and proved Silverfort’s product is both unparalleled and robust at scale.
We look forward to the exciting journey ahead with Hed, Yaron, and the entire Silverfort team, and to joining the strong investor syndicate now including TLV Partners, StageOne Ventures, Aspect Ventures, Acrew Capital, Vintage Investment Partners, Maor Investments, GM Ventures, Citi Ventures and Singtel Innov8 on this special ride.
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