Cybersecurity platform offers a novel and critical approach for enterprises to discover and control the new attack surface created by their hyperconnected online ecosystems

Kirkland, WA and Tel Aviv, October 13, 2020 – IONIX, an ecosystem security pioneer, today announced it has emerged from stealth after closing an $8.25 million seed funding round co-led by Team8 Capital and Hyperwise Ventures. The company’s groundbreaking platform enables security teams to identify and neutralize the rising threats stemming from vulnerabilities within online assets throughout an enterprise’s far-reaching, hyperconnected ecosystem. IONIX will use the new capital to boost its sales and marketing efforts, while expanding and accelerating product development of its Ecosystem Security™ platform.

Enterprises are increasingly leveraging a myriad of technology partners and third-party online solutions to enrich their market presence, improve operations, and best serve customers. Each of these partners make countless more connections, creating an ever-expanding ecosystem of predominantly unmonitored and unmanaged resources that are vulnerable targets for attackers to take over and exploit. Relevant attacks can take the form of public key (PKI) breaches, malicious code or resource injection (Magecart-style attacks), DNS hijacks and abuse of misconfigured cloud infrastructures, with the intent to take over the assets of connected organizations and steal data. This ecosystem of seemingly legitimate connections and trusted resources creates a continually growing attack surface that extends far beyond the security perimeter, which is uniquely appealing to hackers, and extremely complicated for enterprises to monitor and secure.

IONIX uniquely solves the problem of defending ecosystem vulnerabilities and neutralizing threats from attackers along three key parameters:

1. Discovering the extensive inventory of known and unknown assets throughout the enterprise’s far-reaching ecosystem, including directly and indirectly connected resources
2. Continuously performing a security assessment for a uniquely extensive set of vulnerabilities on these assets and connections before attackers can exploit them
3. Providing timely alerts with actionable directions and automated proactive protection, where possible, to neutralize vulnerabilities

The IONIX platform is a SaaS solution with a distributed architecture, and works immediately without any installation, configurations or modifications.

“Following rapid growth in both research and development, as well as winning new clients that include Fortune 500 companies, we are excited to emerge from stealth and champion the rising ecosystem security sector,” said IONIX founder and CEO Dr. Nethanel Gelernter. “We appreciate Team8 Capital and Hyperwise Ventures’ recognition that cybersecurity needs to extend well beyond the enterprise’s own assets and perimeter, leveraging a more agile and proactive approach that is critical to protecting against far-reaching ecosystem attacks. IONIX looks forward to a close partnership with these two leading venture firms.”

Ecosystem security, a timely response to today’s cybersecurity threats

In today’s evolving cyber landscape, enterprises require new security solutions that extend beyond the traditional perimeter-centric approaches, like firewalls and antivirus software, which don’t address ecosystem attacks. Recently, the Magecart hacking group exploited online shopping cart systems to steal card payment data from eight US city websites, Forbes, TicketMaster, British Airways and thousands of e-commerce sites by compromising third-party payment software. In 2019, Magecart-style attacks were estimated to have cost businesses over $1 billion. In 2020, IONIX’s research team continues to see an increase in the abuse of online infrastructures, including a campaign that has hit hundreds of enterprises and governments. In each of these cases, hackers abused web and DNS connections to misconfigured cloud infrastructures to gain a foothold inside the organization. With an ecosystem security solution, risky connections and vulnerable assets can be monitored and tracked with threats neutralized to help minimize attacks via this online infrastructure.

Former Global Head of Cloud Security at Check Point, Senior Director at Aqua Security and Director of Enterprise Strategy at Microsoft, Ran Nahmias co-founded IONIX and serves as Chief Business Officer. Nahmias commented, “Enterprise security risks are no longer constrained to the gates of the organization’s firewall. The threats are analogous to infections caused by the Covid-19 virus. While detecting the virus in your immediate circle of contacts is helpful, the detected level of exposure exponentially grows as you start factoring in people in your second, third and fourth circles of contact. IONIX works by detecting threats from all connected third-party online solutions, their connections, and the connections of their connections, to systematically identify vulnerabilities and neutralize previously undetectable threats within the vast, highly dynamic online ecosystem.”

“Team8 Capital is excited to co-lead the seed funding of IONIX and partner with its exceptional leadership team on an ambitious mission to mitigate security vulnerabilities stemming from enterprise adoption of third-party technologies,” said Sarit Firon, Managing Partner of Team8 Capital. “For enterprises, IONIX offers a unique solution that takes into account the new and pervasive reality of connected online supply chains, giving CISOs access to a new paradigm of security with a dynamic and proactive approach.”

“Attacks on external digital assets of enterprises are becoming a prominent vector for sophisticated cyber criminals,” said Hyperwise Ventures’ Managing Partner Nathan Shuchami. “In the face of hackers finding vulnerabilities in new and wider attack surfaces, IONIX offers unparalleled detection and protection capabilities, providing comprehensive security across the organization’s entire online ecosystem. Hyperwise Ventures is thrilled to co-lead the seed funding round in IONIX.”

About IONIX

IONIX, the Ecosystem Security™ company, is a pioneer in the new ecosystem cybersecurity paradigm, defending the new and vast attack surface created by online ecosystems. IONIX enables organizations to see and manage their online ecosystem and protect them from vulnerabilities as it continues to expand. The IONIX platform systematically tracks, analyzes and maintains the vast inventory of known and unknown assets and their connections throughout an organization’s far-reaching ecosystem, to continuously identify and neutralize vulnerabilities before attackers can exploit them. To learn more, visit ionix.com.

About Team8 Capital

Team8 Capital is the investment arm of company-building and venture group Team8, investing in early-stage companies across enterprise technology, data, AI, cybersecurity, and fintech, at seed, A, and B rounds. Team8 Capital is led by Managing Partners Sarit Firon, one of Israel’s leading investors who has helped realize more than $4 billion in exits and IPOs, and Liran Grinberg, who co-founded Team8 and its unique company-building model in 2014.

Team8 group’s leadership represents serial entrepreneurs, industry pioneers and the former leadership of Israel’s elite tech and intelligence Unit 8200. The venture group is backed by global companies including Microsoft, Walmart, Cisco, Barclays and Moody’s among others. For further information, visit www.team8.vc.

About Hyperwise Ventures 

Hyperwise Ventures is a venture capital firm, leading seed investments in the cybersecurity and enterprise software domains. It invests in brilliant entrepreneurs with ground-breaking technologies, and materially assists in accelerating the business execution of its portfolio companies. The three managing partners, Nathan Shuchami, Ben Omelchenko and Aviv Gafni bring extensive entrepreneurial experience as the co-founders of Hyperwise Security, an advanced threat prevention innovator that was acquired by Check Point Software Technologies in 2015. Existing investors in Hyperwise Ventures include financial institutions from the U.S., E.U. and Israel, together with an impressive list of global leaders in the cybersecurity and high tech sectors (https://hyperwise.vc/).

For more information, please contact:

Diane McKaye
Silicon Valley Communications
[email protected]
+44 7771 926726