{Startup Watch: Vehere} A Real-Time Cyber Situational Awareness Solution that Uses Network Telemetry Data

With a sudden shift in priorities and to maintain optimal business performance, organizations are compelled to adopt technologies that are location and platform agnostic. The new shift to home-workspace requires better vigilance of cyber and performance risks to both individual and business.

Vehere, a cyber situation awareness company, develops platform-agnostic Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered solutions to help realize latent insights in network telemetry data in real-time. As such, the company is privy to the challenges that COVID-19 has brought along with it.

Praveen Jaiswal, Co-Founder and Head of Business Development at Vehere, spoke to The Tech Panda about how cybersecurity companies are dealing with new challenges and opportunities in a post-pandemic landscape.

With most of the workforce accessing official documents and other information from unsecured networks, there is greater urgency among organizations to understand the risks, review their security preparedness and find solutions to mitigate any possible threats

“The pandemic has brought significant disruptions to the world around us and forced companies to adopt increased cost-saving measures. So, as businesses across industries resorted to large-scale budget cuts, security spending did take a significant hit,” he says.

The pandemic has also created business challenges for cybersecurity providers like Vehere as enterprises want clear visibility of the benefits being delivered upon adopting the technology into business. However, with the push for remote work, more companies realize the need to have visibility over the network.

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“With most of the workforce accessing official documents and other information from unsecured networks, there is greater urgency among organizations to understand the risks, review their security preparedness and find solutions to mitigate any possible threats,” he adds.

To address these growing security concerns, Vehere has reviewed their product portfolio and worked on building solutions that could address the security needs of a distributed workforce. With the new innovative approach, they have developed a solution that could reside in an individual’s device and still provide the highest level of alertness and security.

“Being connected with the enterprise security infrastructure, this helps every employee securely access enterprise network and keeps it safe from any external threats,” he explains.

Vehere’s Cyber Situational Awareness Solutions

Vehere offers AI-powered network detection and response tools that proactively detect emerging risks for enterprises with solutions that are location and platform agnostic and maintain a lean non-intrusive footprint, thereby enabling security teams to be efficient in response and in adhering to compliance.

The company has proven experience with deployments, ranging from tactical solutions to large nationwide strategic monitoring centres across governments, businesses, and continents. Their clientele includes leading names across banking, telecom, IT, pharma, energy and utilities, government, defence, and law enforcement and national security agencies.

Like any new startup, we were intrigued by technology’s scope and potential to solve real-world problems. We invested our early years in understanding the market and building compelling insights through research

The company has a global presence with its operations spread across India and a global footprint spread across the US, Armenia, Singapore, and South Africa.

Harnessing the power of advanced Big data Analytics, AI and Machine Learning (ML), Vehere’s Cyber Situational Awareness solutions have acquired a high level of efficiency to effectively reduce the risk of a breach and to proactively defend against threats.

“Our products leverage data from the user’s environment and enable data-driven decision-making processes to enhance the cybersecurity posture. The data-source in case of our solution is Network telemetry data,” Jaiswal explains.

Vehere’s solution captures network traffic and analyzes it using multiple techniques to detect threats, improve incident response and discover intruders hiding in the environment.

Vehere Origin

The company was founded in 2006 by Naveen and Praveen Jaiswal, with a focus on cyber situational awareness for homeland security.

“Like any new startup, we were intrigued by technology’s scope and potential to solve real-world problems. We invested our early years in understanding the market and building compelling insights through research,” Jaiswal reminisces.

Looking at the growing threat landscape, we recognized the gaps and looked at how organizations could benefit from real-time intelligence

They initially started with process solutions, but the business took a turn in 2009 when they moved to New Delhi and had the opportunity to work with premier national security agencies. In 2011, they also worked with the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) on an R&D program to develop indigenous security solutions.

“Looking at the growing threat landscape, we recognized the gaps and looked at how organizations could benefit from real-time intelligence. We decided to build a real-time cyber situational awareness solution to mitigate emerging cybersecurity challenges using network telemetry data. With our continued investment in research, we have focused our efforts on addressing the gaps in the cybersecurity space that would enable enterprises to detect and respond faster to cybersecurity threats,” he says.

A Decade in the Market

Cybersecurity is continuously evolving with a growing range of threats. In the decade that Vehere has spent in the market, they have learnt that cyberthreats have become more sophisticated, targeted, and have many severe implications from early age viruses and hacks.

“Till the last decade, we were trying to find a response to attacks guided through malicious codes and Trojans. But attack technology continues to outpace defence technologies, and bad actors, including state sponsored attackers, are increasingly looking to find loopholes in the network to gain unauthorized network or system access using proxy servers,” says Jaiswal.

Attack technology continues to outpace defence technologies, and bad actors, including state sponsored attackers, are increasingly looking to find loopholes in the network to gain unauthorized network or system access using proxy servers

Given the emerging trends and the changing security landscape, the company has added new capabilities to their product to provide enterprises more significant control over their network. They are also working with third-party integrators to help enterprises keep real-time vigil, identify any suspicious activity on the network, and neutralize any external threat.

Indian and the Global Markets

The cybersecurity scenario in India is very much palpable, however when compared to the evolved markets, India remains a price-sensitive market where cost-related consideration continues to be one of the fundamentals that foreshadow the overall decision-making process.

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“Without any direct and visible benefits, it becomes even more challenging to convince Indian buyers to adopt advanced cybersecurity solutions,” says Jaiswal.

Besides, business leaders and security practitioners across India are well aware of the developments happening around the world. However, there remains challenges concerning the balance between the security features anticipated and the kind of budget enterprises are willing to allocate towards strengthening their security infrastructure.