The Emergence of Kodem: A New Player in the Application Security Market
Application security is one of the most difficult areas to remediate in enterprise security risk management. With constantly rotating services and applications and regular usage leading to vulnerability, securing applications becomes a matter of human and policy management. While this has made the application security market a lucrative opportunity, businesses typically do not have the resources to create their own internal tools to manage it. This is where new players such as Kodem come into the picture.
A startup founded in Israel in 2021 by a team of security veterans from NSO Group, Kodem focuses on mitigating and determining risk by analyzing and understanding application runtime intelligence. With a total of $25 million, it has emerged from stealth with $18 million raised in Series A funding led by Greylock and $7 million in seed funding co-led by Greylock and TPY Capital.
Kodem’s approach to application security is novel in that it analyzes and runs models on application runtime data to understand the applications running alongside it. The software then only flags application security alerts that are specific to the organization’s particular stack of applications and services. This ensures that only relevant alerts that require immediate attention are sent to the security operations team, reducing the number of alerts by 95%.
The team at Kodem, including CEO Aviv Mussinger, co-founder Pavel Furman (CTO), and Idan Bartura (Head of Engineering), have years of experience as security researchers at NSO, the company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware. Mussinger is quick to distance himself from NSO’s public profile and states that their focus is to help protect companies against any attack. He describes their approach as cloud-native, deploying seamlessly, and provides the highest standards of accuracy with robust and growing coverage.
Kodem’s Innovative Model for Application Security
The widening scope of cloud-based applications has made application security an increasingly critical matter for IT cybersecurity teams. Kodem has responded to this growing demand by creating a unique solution that focuses on runtime intelligence. One novel aspect of Kodem’s approach is its emphasis on open source software. According to Mussinger, open source has destroyed the traditional approach to security. However, given its ubiquity in the market right now, Kodem’s approach is meant to fix that.
Traditionally, application security tools have flagged all potential risks in a “no-flick” approach, which can be counterproductive since many alerts are irrelevant. Kodem’s approach is notably different, analyzing application runtime data and only sending alerts that are relevant to an organization’s particular stack of applications and services. In addition, less than 10% of software is used at runtime, and less than 5% of runtime software is actually vulnerable, a statistic that may vary depending on each organization. This means that businesses can significantly reduce the number of alerts by using Kodem, which reduces the noise of irrelevant alerts and helps them prioritize better.
Kodem’s approach has attracted investors such as Greylock and TPY Capital, with the latter’s CEO, Yi Wang, noting that the application security market has significant untapped potential. The company already has clients in financial services, insurance, and technology, which are industries with high potential for cybersecurity threats.
The Importance of Application Security
Software application patches are critical for maintaining secure IT systems, but they also need to be updated regularly to avoid exploitation by hackers. This is why application security remains one of the most significant challenges in cybersecurity today. The importance of application security is highlighted by the fact that the application security market is estimated to be worth $9.9 billion in 2021, rising to $22 billion by 2020. Unfortunately, only 40% of businesses believe their security software is fully consistent with their needs, according to a recent report by Optiv. This highlights the need for innovative solutions that can meet specific business needs.
Recent cybersecurity threats such as the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline highlight the need for more sophisticated security measures. Proliferating ransomware attacks reinforce the need to implement risk management strategies that enable IT departments to identify and address vulnerabilities effectively. The number of vulnerabilities found in applications increases every year, which is why organizations need to adopt innovative solutions to identify and mitigate potential problems, which could cause harm to their operations.
The Future of Application Security
The increasing importance of cloud-based applications means that application security will continue to be a vital area for IT security teams in the coming years. With Kodem’s innovative approach to application security, there is no doubt that other players in the market will follow suit. However, as Optiv’s report highlights, businesses need security software that is fully consistent with their needs. This means that players that provide tailor-made solutions to address specific security challenges of individual clients will thrive in the market.
The increasing sophistication of cybersecurity threats means that businesses need proactive security solutions rather than simple reaction-based models. This means that the future of application security lies in identifying and mitigating risks before they happen and developing tailor-made solutions for individual business needs. This is the direction that Kodem is taking, and this is undoubtedly a good omen for the future of cybersecurity.
In Summary
Kodem, a startup founded in Israel in 2021, is changing the application security market with its innovative approach to security risk management. The company has attracted significant investments, with Greylock and TPY Capital being two of the main investors. Kodem’s approach is cloud-native and deploys seamlessly, ensuring that security alerts are highly accurate and have robust and growing coverage. As the importance of application security increases, the market is expected to grow from $9.9 billion to $22 billion by 2024. Kodem’s innovative runtime intelligence model for identifying vulnerabilities in applications ensures that businesses can reduce unnecessary alerts and prioritize relevant risks. As the cybersecurity landscape evolves, businesses will need to adopt advanced proactive solutions rather than simple reactionary measures to protect their systems effectively.
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A new startup enters the fray in the application security market: Kodem, an Israel company founded by a team of security veterans from NSO Group, focuses on determining and mitigating risks by leveraging runtime intelligence from individual applications. Today, he is emerging from stealth, armed with a total of $25 million.
The financing includes an $18 million Series A led by Greylock with a $7 million seed co-led by TPY Capital and Greylock. Kodem CEO Aviv Mussinger said he has been using the funds to build and now launch his platform globally. Founded in 2021, Kodem said it already has clients in financial services, insurance and technology.
In the enterprise security risk landscape, application security remains one of the most difficult to remediate. Not only is there a constantly rotating and changing carousel of services that need to be identified and tracked, but regular use of one application risks creating a vulnerability in another. Application management becomes not only a matter of human management, but also a matter of policy management.
But ironically, that also makes it a lucrative area: The mess of application security means that companies typically don’t have the resources to create internal tools to manage it. Is My dear that application security will be a $9.9 billion market opportunity this year, growing to about $22 billion by 2020.
Mussinger, along with his co-founders Pavel Furman (CTO) and Idan Bartura (Head of Engineering) came to found Kodem after working for years as security researchers at NSO, the controversial cyberintelligence firm behind the Pegasus spyware.
Mussinger, unsurprisingly given NSO’s public profile at the moment, speaks of that pedigree with some detachment: his view is that, as researchers, he and his co-founders were not directly involved in the aspects of NSO and Pegasus that were essentially weaponized by the state. organizations and others. And the focus on NSO, he said, wasn’t really anything like what Kodem sets out to fix, though he did give the three briefings his ideas about what kind of company to start and what to tackle.
“Our focus today is to help protect companies against any attack,” he said. “At NSO, we saw everything from the inside and understood how things could be built in a better way.”
One of his conclusions, he said, was that “open source has destroyed the traditional approach to security.” But given its ubiquity in the market right now, that’s what his approach is meant to fix.
The fact of the matter, he said, is that the current range of application security tools have a common problem: They are all designed to flag all potential problems in a sort of no-flick approach. To security operations teams, this eventually starts to sound like noise, as many of these alerts are irrelevant or non-issues. That also means that when something really bad comes up, it goes unseen or ignored. (This also reminds me of my email inbox, but that’s another story…)
Kodem’s solution is to analyze application runtime data and run models on top of that to understand what else is running alongside it. It then combines and sorts this data, and then only produces application security alerts that are relevant to an organization’s particular stack of applications and services. On average, Kodem believes that less than 10% of all software is actually used at runtime, and less than 5% of runtime software is actually vulnerable. (Note: each organization is evaluated and may have different percentages). And overall, the process reduces the number of alerts by 95%, the company says. Fewer alerts means a higher probability that the ones a security team receives will be relevant. And in any case, the smaller payload means it’s considerably easier to sort the list.
“As enterprises continue to move their workloads to the cloud, application security is growing in importance and priority for IT cybersecurity teams,” Asheem Chandna, a partner at Greylock, said in a statement. “Kodem has assembled an exceptional product team that is developing the next generation of application security, one that is cloud-native, deploys seamlessly, and provides the highest levels of accuracy with robust and growing coverage.”
Kodem comes out of stealth with $25M to tackle application security
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