Akita
Akita revolutionizes home network cybersecurity. Due to the COVID19, Akita is a unique player in the corporate cyber field, while maintaining employee privacy. Akita has extensive experience with thousands of home customers worldwide
44% of funding target
Highlights
Highlights
What is the problem and why now?
The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a dramatic increase in the use of home networks. About 96% (!) of corporations around the world report a full or partial transition working from home. This increase led to a surge in attacks over home networks, which often suffer weak cybersecurity systems, and to an increase of 70% in threats against corporations, and 55% of organizations are expected to increase their budget for telecommuting security.
Akita operates in the cybersecurity market for corporates, which is a huge market and one of the largest markets today.
AKITA wants to grab a share of these new budgets.
Why AKITA?
Keeping employee privacy- Network security solutions for corporate networks are based on the understanding that network traffic belongs to the corporation and the corporation has the right to analyze it. However, in the home networks, it doesn't work like this. In spite of the fact that employees work for a corporation, there is an activity in a home network that is not related to the corporation. That exactly the reason why GDPR and CCPA regulations were written. Currently, Akita provides a unique solution that complements (and doesn't compete with) existing corporate solutions, while keeping employee privacy.
Active service around the world - AKITA.CLOUD provides service to thousands of home and SOHO customers in dozens of countries around the world, since 2019.
Price - The cost of exists Network security solutions is thousands of percent higher than AKITA. The reason is that the AKITA solution was designed for the domestic market from the beginning.
How does AKITA intend to grab market share?
As a result of a successful pilot with one of the most prominent companies in the Israel market – OASIS ( which today is one of the 5 leading Integrators in the Israeli cybersecurity market) has agreed to start distributing the AKITA solution to OASIS many customers in Israel and worldwide. This immediately led to an increase in the sales pipeline to about 5 other companies which willing to discourse about mutual pilots.
Experienced team with significant experience in cybersecurity
AKITA.CLOUD was founded in Israel in 2017, with offices in Silicon Valley and the Netherlands, and has received funding from the international VC AltaIR Capital. One of its founders and investors is Igor Rabinovich, who served at the IDF’s Mamram unit and has more than 20 years of experience in developing cyber and security systems, including a successful exit with one of his companies in the security field. The team has several other world-class professionals, including CyberInt founder Raz Alon and MoovIT CISO Natan Ladin who contribute to the development and scaling-up of the company.
Pitch
Pitch
The Idea
In recent years telecommuting is constantly growing worldwide. Its increase was encouraged by the constant improvement and growth of home bandwidth, the decreasing price of end-products, and the development of mobile internet. In addition, the emergence of online working tools such as Dropbox and Slack has contributed to the productivity and efficiency of remote teams.
Moreover, the increasing awareness of climate issues, and especially the need to reduce the carbon footprint stemming from the use of cars for commuting, the competition between tech companies for high-quality employees, which increased the demand for a sustainable work-life balance, have led more and more companies to adopt the option of telecommuting.
Alongside these factors, the recent Coronavirus outbreak has led to significant changes and encouraged many companies to support telecommuting. Approximately half of the organizations reported that they have sent their employees to work from home.
But as home networks are not protected like organizational networks, telecommuting may lead to a significant increase in cybersecurity incidents within organizations.
AKITA.CLOUD is here to bridge this gap, with advanced technology and cutting-edge cybersecurity.
The need
Unlike organizational networks, home networks suffer from poor security, due to a slew of reasons:
1) Lack of awareness of threats, including the fact that hackers exploit personal computers for their own purposes such as Bitcoin mining.
2) The tendency of home networks ISPs and peripheral equipment providers to prefer the ease of use over cybersecurity, in order to avoid any complex installation at the client’s house, which may increase the demand for expensive technical support.
3) Home networks are connected to additional devices besides computers, such as tv monitors, refrigerators, and a growing range of devices for smart-home solutions (IoT). Traditionally, these products suffer from security weaknesses such as the lack of a password, thus facilitating the breach of home networks and to employees’ computers. For example, approximately 40% of the houses worldwide suffer from a weakness in their home network, due to just one device that jeopardizes the entire network.
4) Unlike organizations, in which professionals are responsible to secure the network and to set Security Procedures about what software programs should be avoided, or used carefully, private users are in many cases unaware of security threats and cyber damages. Therefore, they might engage in dangerous actions. such as not updating their security software or shutting down their antivirus if it impairs their activity in any way.
5) The home network users will bear cybersecurity costs and would prefer in general to avoid paying for what they perceive as a luxury, thus leading to additional weakness of the home network.
Up until recently, only home users were to be concerned by such issues, but due to the increase in telecommuting within organizations, these issues are increasingly concerning CISOs as well. According to a recent HP survey, half of IT managers in different companies chose to invest greater resources in home network security for their employees, and approximately 40% have chosen to increase the required resources needed for their organization’s cloud security.
While in the past, home networks were a convenient target for hackers for extortion and breach of private information, currently the home network serves as a de facto convenient gateway through which hackers can hack into corporations in order to get information that’s worth much more.
The solution
AKITA.CLOUD has developed AKITA.BOX, which is placed and installed at the users’ homes. The box monitors the traffic over the Wi-Fi and the home network , analyzes the information over it, and transmits the stats of that network to the cloud of AKITA.CLOUD. There, this information is analyzed using AI-based models that detect and prevent attacks, while maintaining the privacy of users and any business information, in compliance with the most strict security and privacy protocols currently in the world, namely ISO, GDPR and CCPA.
Prior to the installation of AKITA.BOX, CISOs can inspect the network without any installation of special hardware, so they can get a reliable and clear picture of their employee’s network state. This innovative and unique solution is already patented.
The technology
AKITA.CLOUD’s solution is based on two registered patents and comprises two complementary technological systems.
The first system, AKITA.BOX, is an innovative wireless device over the Wi-Fi network which gathers information, monitors any threats, and serves to estimate any existing and potential weaknesses over the home network. This system can also monitor and analyze potential threats deriving from cellular devices that connect to the home network and may compromise its security.
The second system is Akita.Dashboards, a back-office system that enables CISOs to investigate any events that occur over the home network in a simple and efficient manner. This system can be interfaced with most systems used by CISOs, in order to enable a full integration between home- and organization- network security.
Such technology, and specifically the connection between private end users on one hand and organizational security needs on the other hand, results in several significant advantages that AKITA.CLOUD’s cutting-edge product has over other cybersecurity companies and products.
The company’s activity among private users places it at the forefront of innovation in this field, creating a significant advantage both for private users and large corporations, including:
- A unique solution that maintains the client’s privacy while providing a corporate-level solution
- Competitive price compared to enterprises products
- Vulnerability assessment of end users’ home network before and during the installation, and weekly scheduled vulnerability assessments, in compliance with NIST’s requirements
- Reporting cyber threats in multiple channels – SMS, email, Slack, ZenDesk, FreshDesk, Jira, SysAid, OpsGenie, and additional avenues
- Provision of tools, guidance, and remote support to handle cyber threats, with or without any intervention of end users
- A simple installation process, adapted for non-technical users, not requiring any changes to the home network
Centralized management of AKITA.CLOUD devices installed at the end-user’s homes. Constant updates about new cybersecurity threats, collected by thousands of honeypots installed at home networks of end users
Media
Is your SOHO& Home Network secured enough for Teleworking?, Medium, March 20th
BD Soft Launches Akita IoT Security Device For Smart Homes In India, Gizbot, January 17th
The Russian Code, Calcalist, 6.9.19
Team
Team
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Biography
Mr. Toptunov is a veteran cybersecurity leader, who has almost 20 years of experience in information security research, planning, servicing, managing, and consulting. |
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Biography
Mr. Belousov is an experienced specialist in International B2B, B2C project management, with 4+ years of successful experience in projects worldwide. |
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Biography
Mr. Meiri has over 5 years of software development and data analysis implementation experience, specializing in C#, .NET, SQL and Azure Cloud services. |
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Biography
Mr. Ryabenkiy is the Managing Partner of AltaIR.VC, a serial entrepreneur and an angel investor with over 20 years of successful executive and investment experience, including in internet startups and IT companies. He has funded, developed, and exited a significant number of investment projects in Israel and worldwide.
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Biography
An experienced Cybersecurity Expert (CISSP, CISM, CRISC, CCSK). Mr. Ladin serves as CISO with Market Leading Companies.
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Biography
Mr. Alon is a serial entrepreneur and an Angel investor with over 20 years of industry experience. Raz co-founded CyberInt in 2010 and served as its co-CEO until 2016. Prior to that, Raz co-founded and served as Security CTO for We!Secure, until it was acquired by HilanTech in 2008.
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Biography
Mr. Meiri is a data mining & predictive analytics expert with rich experience of developing algorithms & models for various applications, including marketing, behavioural targeting, mobile, and fraud. Driven by developing state of the art data mining solutions & tools for improving business performance.
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