SquareX named most promising startup at Cyber Summit 2024

SquareX, a leading cybersecurity vendor, has been recognised as the "Most Promising Startup for Best Overall Performance" at the Cyber Entrepreneurship Summit 2024. The event took place at the Nasdaq Entrepreneurial Center in San Francisco, coinciding with the start of the RSA conference.

The summit attracted over 100 Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) from NASDAQ-listed companies, including notable firms such as Marriott, Nordstrom, Notion, and Booking.com. Throughout the full-day, master-class-style event, key areas of cyber entrepreneurship were explored, covering ideation, funding, building, marketing, and selling.

A highlight of the event was the Cyber Startup Showcase during the afternoon session. Founders from Silicon Valley and beyond pitched their startups to a distinguished panel consisting of Aanchal Gupta, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft; Coleen Coolidge, former CISO at Twilio and Segment; and Lakshmi Hanspal, former CISO at Amazon, Box, and SAP. The competition saw judges and audience members posing challenging questions to understand the market, product efficacy, and the specific pain points being addressed.

Vivek Ramachandran, founder and CEO of SquareX, led the company's presentation. He highlighted the sophistication of modern cyber attackers who use multi-channel strategies to target employees through social media, email, and Slack. Ramachandran pointed out the limitations enterprises face even with robust security solutions due to the lack of visibility in the browser and the absence of application context and user action understanding.

Ramachandran explained that SquareX's browser-native solution tackles these issues by detecting multi-layer attacks through an understanding of browser Document Object Model (DOM) changes and user interactions. This allows for zero-lag detection and mitigation, containing threats before they reach the endpoint device.

Following his presentation, the judges delved deeper into the market specifics and technology behind SquareX's solutions. Questions were raised about the proportion of web-based attacks and the real-time functionality of SquareX’s threat attribution and mitigation tools. The audience showed strong engagement, with several CISOs approaching Ramachandran post-presentation to discuss their companies' challenges and express interest in the SquareX enterprise solution.

"We are honoured to receive this award and be recognised among such esteemed peers, especially by a panel of judges with distinguished careers as CISOs," said Ramachandran. He noted the browser's ubiquity in enterprises and its vulnerability as an attack vector. "Our product allows enterprises to detect, mitigate, and threat-hunt web attacks happening to enterprise users in real-time," he added.

This accolade marks a significant milestone for SquareX, which has witnessed rapid growth since its inception just a year ago. With over 200,000 users globally, SquareX unveiled its enterprise solution at the RSA on the same day as the Cyber Entrepreneurship Summit. The company’s unique approach to threat detection and its attack vectors have garnered notable interest and acclaim.