Cloud incident response nets another $45M with Mitiga’s latest funding  

Cloud adoption is on the rise. Just last year, 89% of enterprises migrated data from on-premise storage to the public cloud. And, 84% of organizations expect to increase the amount of data they store in the public cloud in 2023. 

This is great news for decision makers. But for security teams, the growing use of cloud services calls for a new approach to securing data as it moves from on-premise devices through SaaS apps, containers and services, a tall task amid an ongoing cybersecurity skills gap. 

Yet a growing number of providers are looking to automated threat hunting and response to mitigate cloud-based threats. One such vendor is cloud and SaaS incident response provider Mitiga, which today announced the completion of its Series A funding round led by ClearSky Security, bringing its total funding to $45 million .

At a high level, the funding highlights the fact that investors and organizations are looking to new, scalable solutions to identify and resolve cloud breaches in the shortest time possible. 

Why is securing the cloud so challenging? 

The announcement not only comes as cloud adoption is increasing, but as cloud breaches are rising, with 45% of organizations experiencing a data breach or failed audit involving data and applications in the cloud 2022 versus 35% in 2021. 

One of the main reasons these breaches are so common is that cloud environments are complex. 

Key data assets and PII can traverse from an employee’s on-premise desktop to a SaaS app, service, container or co worker’s personal device, with improper access controls or misconfigurations leaving information exposed to hackers. 

“Cloud and SaaS rely on a shared responsibility model, but when breaches happen, the burden of responsibility for incident response falls squarely on the organization,”  said Tal Mozes, Mitiga cofounder and CEO.

He continued: “However, those same organizations don’t have the forensics data they need for investigation — that information is speed across a host of CSPs (Cloud Security Provider) and apps all with different processes and standards for providing access to the information.”

Mitiga’s answer to these challenges is its IR2 platform, an automated solution for collecting, organizing and analyzing forensic data taken across services like AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, GitHub and Slack.

For instance, the tool can scan an app for indicators of compromise and compare it to a cloud attack scenario library (CASL). If there’s a match, it can implement an automated incident response to contain the incident. 

The organization also has a ream of specialist cloud forensic investigators who can help respond to complex security breaches. 

A look at the incident response market 

Mitiga’s solution falls loosely within the global incident response market, which ResearchandMarkets estimates will reach a value of $119.39 billion in 2030 as more organizations attempt to keep up with modern cybercrime. 

One of Mitiga’s most relevant competitors is Cado Security, which just last week announced it raised $20 million in funding for its own automated cloud incident response solution. The tool automatically collects forensic level data across cloud, container and serverless environments. 

Mitiga also competes against larger organizations like Palo Alto Networks, which offers Cortex XDR, a tool using machine learning to identify malicious activity including malware infection, data exfiltration and credential stuffing through the use of behavioral analytics. 

Palo Alto Networks recently raised a revenue round of $1.7 billion in the second quarter of 2023. 

However, Mozes argues that Mitiga’s team of cloud forensic experts sets it apart from its competitors.  

“Unlike traditional incident response providers, Mitiga’s modern IR2 platform and deep cloud forensic expertise help companies prepare for cloud and SaaS breaches before they happen and get back to business as usual 90% faster than older methods,” said Mozes. “Also, Mitiga has a unique technology to answer SaaS-related breaches as well as cloud infrastructure ones.”

Originally appeared on: TheSpuzz