These Microsoft Ventures security startups are beating hackers at their own game

As we have seen after the WannaCrypt ransomware made its way into computers across the world, cyber security is an issue at the forefront of the headlines these days. But the question still remains, how do you stop the hackers from striking in the first place?

Recently, a group of Microsoft Ventures security startups took to the stage at Microsoft Inspire 2017 to showcase their answers to that question, and how they are beating hackers at their own game. The two startups, Synack, and Illusive Networks have two very different approaches, both of which have been proven to be successful (via Data Center Knowledge.)

We begin with Synack, which received a $21 million investment from Microsoft Ventures in April. This company is based in Redwood City, California, and was founded in 2013, after their current CEO and co-founder Jay Kaplan left the NSA.

To keep the hackers away, they’re using what is known as crowdfunding cyber security. With their security platform, Synack offers crowdsourced penetration testing, vulnerability orchestration, analytics and risk reporting. This brings together cyber security experts from across the world and ultimately helps companies find threats faster, and on a more reliable basis.

Next up is Illusive Networks, which is an Isreali company that specializes in deception-based cyber security technology. The company recently received an investment from Microsoft Ventures and is a subsidiary of Team 8, which has been a part of Microsoft Ventures since last year.

To stop hackers and cyber attackers from striking in the first place, Illusive Networks depends on post-breach technologies. With this technology, Illusive Networks is able to think like an attacker and understand what the attacker is looking for, and how they could move into a network.  According to Data Center Knowledge, Illusive Networks even tries to defeat the hackers by using fake browser history,  false credentials, and a trap server, ultimately sending the data back to teams at the company to help prevent attacks.

Microsoft Ventures launched about a year ago, and it is a venture capital division which will focuses on early-stage start-up investments. In the first five months, Microsoft Ventures backed 13 startups in several B2B industries.