Hyas raises $16 million to accelerate cyberattack intercept technology

After launching its Hyas Protect service last year, threat detection company Hyas today announced a $16 million round to accelerate growth.

“Hyas focuses on understanding … adversary infrastructure and understanding the communication patterns so you can block that communication,” Hyas CEO Dave Ratner said.

Ratner explained that when bad actors are constructing a phishing attack or a malware campaign, they have to do things like register a domain and build a website. That’s part of setting up a “command and control” structure. When the malware or ransomware is installed, it eventually needs to communicate back to someplace else.

Hyas’ notion of “intercept technology” begins by mapping that adversary infrastructure and the communication patterns. The company’s original Insight product used that knowledge to gather data to aid investigations into security and fraud attacks. This product has gained a fair bit of traction among large enterprises.

Founded in 2015, Hyas raised $6.2 million in 2018. Its big product was Comox, which was later renamed Hyas Insight.

Last year, Hyas released Protect, which takes much of that same data and automates analysis so enemy infrastructure can be detected before and during an attack. This allows companies to intercept those communications and in most cases render the attacks ineffective. Hyas’ two products draw on the same data lake and complement each other, Ratner said.

A greater range of companies are now adopting Protect. And the pandemic has led to a strong year for security.

S3 Ventures led the round announced today, which included money from Uncorrelated Ventures, Tightline Holdings, Cyber Mentor Fund, Dcode Capital, M12, Startup Capital Ventures, and 205 Capital. The company will use the funds to expand into more countries as it continues product development.

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