Flemish hacking platform gets largest crowdsourced funding in the sector in Europe
The Antwerp-based bug bounty and vulnerability disclosure platform Intigriti has raised this week €21,133,700 million, closing the largest funding for a crowdsourced security platform in Europe so far. The funding round was led by Octopus Ventures with the participation of German fund EnBW New Ventures and Intigriti’s largest shareholder, ETF Partners.
Intigriti was born in Aalst, today is based in Antwerp, and identifies itself as a global company.
"Our ethical hacker community is based across 140 countries across the world. More than a city, our hackers inspire us," says Intigriti’s CEO, Stijn Jans, to Belga News Agency.
The Belgian company aims to help other companies and organizations to protect themselves from cybercrime going beyond traditional pentesting or bug bounty programs. "We test in precisely the same way malicious hackers do," states the company’s website.
This security testing approach was quite challenging to be accepted by companies in 2016, when Intigriti was founded. “Companies were afraid to work with a community, people they did not know. They would prefer to see who they are dealing with and see their certifications, but these certifications do not prove anything in the end,” explains the CEO to Belga News Agency.
Times are changing, though. “Over the past five years we’ve seen major brands worldwide adopting working with a crowd. Instead of being afraid, they have accepted that it is impossible to test and control every single change,” he added.
According to the CEO, companies are understanding the new trends. “Publicly working with a community, showing that you want to listen to anyone on the internet that might have detected a potential flaw, shows that you take security seriously,” says Jans.
The European Commission, Brussels Airport and the Port of Antwerp are among the current clients.
Ethical hackers: new legislation and career
The Belgian company also plans to use the new funds to invest in the education of more than 200 employees across its offices in Europe, the UK and Singapore and hire new “ethical hackers”.
“The world is in desperate need of ethical hackers to counter cybercriminals, but ten years ago the act of ethical hacking was not even legal. Now that legislation has caught up, we do not only need to recruit ethical hackers – we must also create them,” reveals Jans.
According to Intigriti's reports, 66% of their talent pool considers switching to bug bounty hunting as a full-time career. “We anticipate crowdsourced security to be a default career option for talented cybersecurity graduates by 2026, surpassing consultancy in popularity,” affirms the Belgian CEO.
The company bets on human intelligence.
“Cybersecurity companies can create a certain level of automation, but human intelligence still ranks ahead when it comes to identifying security threats," considered Octopus Ventures investor, Paul Davidson.
(VIV)
© Belga Photo (SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP) Officers of Ukrainian Cyberpolice Department work in Kiev on June 29, 2017.