API security platform provider Salt Security announced on Tuesday that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital, with participation from existing investors Tenaya Capital, S Capital VC, and Y Combinator.
The security startup emerged from stealth mode in January 2019, and has now raised a total of $60 million in funding, including a $20 million Series A round that was announced in June 2020.
Founded in 2016 by Michael Nicosia (COO), and Roey Eliyahu (CEO), Salt Security has developed an API Protection Platform that uses big data and artificial intelligence to find and monitor APIs. From this it develops a baseline of normal behavior for each API. Deviations from the baseline can raise a red flag, indicating a possible attack against an API, which can be automatically corrected by calls to other controls (such as firewalls),or reported to the SOC team with recommendations for remedial action.
The platform also reports the API vulnerability being exploited to the DevOps team responsible for the API — again with explanation and recommendations — in a form of digital biofeedback. This feedback makes vulnerability discovery a learning point that feeds back into the development team to improve future API developments.
Eliyahu previously gave SecurityWeek an example of how APIs can be used in an attack: the 2018 Facebook breach that allowed hackers to collect 50 million facebook records. “The hackers found an API vulnerability that allowed them direct access to the profiles of named accounts,” he said. “In this case, it required 50 million API calls, but in other API vulnerabilities you might be able to bring the service down, or request a data dump — it all depends on the API in question and the vulnerability discovered.
“APIs have become a fundamental unit of software. Salt Security enables organizations to discover APIs, prevent real-time attacks, and facilitate remediation, so customers can continue to operate and innovate in an increasingly digitized world,” said Carl Eschenbach, a Partner at Sequoia.
The company says the additional funding will help to accelerate its business in 2021 and support product development, sales and marketing initiatives.
*Kevin Townsend contributed to this report