Cydarm Technologies (Cydarm), an Australian cybersecurity incident response platform, has secured a AU$500k investment led by venture capital firm, Right Click Capital. The funds will be used to enhance Cydarm proprietary technologies and to scale business operations going into 2019.
Cydarm’s platform addresses the skills shortage in cybersecurity by helping teams of analysts respond to potential incidents faster. It uses state-of-the-art machine learning and automation to accelerate cyber forensics and combines it with precise data access control, unlocking collaboration between organisations.
“From left to right, Ulric J. Ferner, Principal at Right Click Capital, and Dr. Vaughan Shanks, CEO of CYDARM”
Dr Vaughan Shanks, Founder at Cydarm said, “With cyber crime increasing in frequency and severity, and government regulators stepping up the pressure on industry to protect the data of their citizens, organisations need to be able to conduct effective cyber incident response.
“Skills shortages in the cybersecurity industry mean that we can no longer afford to have smart people wasting their time on repetitive triage activities and data entry. Cydarm delivers greater efficiency while implementing best practice in incident response management.”
Ulric Ferner, Principal at Right Click Capital said, “Cydarm is reimagining cybersecurity operations, leading the pack of rapidly emerging ‘SOAR’ platforms [Security Operations, Automation, and Response].
“In the cybersecurity sector, SOAR platforms are an area of rapid growth, especially as organisational practices grow in sophistication to match and stay ahead of ever evolving cybercrime techniques. The cybersecurity orchestration market is expected to grow at least 15% annually for the next few years.
“We are delighted to back Vaughan and the team. Cydarm is a great example of a SOAR platform that will enable true cybersecurity collaboration between organisations.”
Damien Manuel, Director of the Centre for Cyber Security Solutions at Deakin University, and mentor to Cydarm, said “The Cydarm case management platform improves workflow management by ensuring consistency in incident management and investigation processes. Another benefit of the solution is a better end user experience for SOC analysts, helping to keep them engaged and on point to defend the organisation.”
Founded by Dr Vaughan Shanks in 2017, Cydarm is built on his deep experiences acquired at the Australian Department of Defence, and Silicon Valley-based data analytics firm Palantir. Having spent almost a decade working at Defence, both in Canberra and Maryland, USA, and another four years at Palantir, Vaughan realised that while the systems that alert organisations to potential cyber attacks have become increasingly sophisticated, the ad-hoc systems used for incident response management – investigating and fixing attacks – are plagued with inefficiency and security risks.
Cydarm plans to focus on scaling its operational growth and expansion in Australia and abroad in 2019.
About Cydarm
Cydarm Technologies is building a platform for cybersecurity incident response management. The Cydarm platform is centred around a secure case management system that provides a collaboration environment for incident responders. Cydarm allows authorised users to track and report on the state of ongoing incidents.
Cydarm Technologies is a graduate of the first cohort of CyRise, a Melbourne-based cybersecurity venture accelerator launched in 2017 by Dimension Data and Deakin University.
About Right Click Capital
Right Click Capital is an investment firm that specialises in identifying, investing in and supporting technology businesses across Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia. The firm’s team have all founded multiple successful technology businesses, and have extensive operational and investment experience. Right Click Capital is the Australian member of Draper Venture Network, a global alliance of venture capital firms with over USD1.8bn in collective assets under management and over 600 portfolio companies around the world.
