Cloud cybersecurity specialist DefenseStorm announced the launch of its latest anti-fraud solution, DefenseStorm FI CyberFraud, this week. FI CyberFraud is designed to spot fraud risks in banking apps as well as identify potentially fraudulent activity in computer systems. The solution leverages designated specialists who work in collaboration with the institution to manage alerts, help in fraud investigations, and serve as an extension of the institution’s own internal operations, fraud, and IT teams.

“Until now, no solution has provided specific monitoring capabilities related to data and application protection, coupled with the ability to correlate events across data, applications, and server/network/workstation events,” DefenseStorm CEO Harold Brewer said. “DefenseStorm FI CyberFraud has the potential to reduce fraud-related costs, improve the financial institution’s risk management posture, and drive cost efficiency related to the required monitoring of cyber activities.”

More specifically, FI CyberFraud analyzes and correlates data from all electronic delivery systems to spot potentially fraudulent behavior and monitors and audits access and configuration changes to both core and ancillary systems such as data warehouses. The technology also tracks transaction activity and databases for atypical usage patterns. DefenseStorm will demonstrate its new solution at the upcoming CUNA Operations and Member Experience Council and Technology Council Conference in Chicago next month.

The new product announcement from DefenseStorm comes just one month after the company picked up a major investment of $15 million in a round led by Georgian Partners. The funding took the company’s total capital to more than $29 million. Also in July, DefenseStorm teamed up with digital banking provider Apiture to offer cloud-based cybersecurity and cybercompliance solutions to its 500+ community bank and credit union partners. This spring, DefenseStorm announced a collaboration with Heritage Trust Federal Credit Union (HTFCU) to help the 50,000-member institution more proactively manage cybercrime risk.

Named a Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia at the beginning of the year, DefenseStorm was founded in 2014 in Seattle as Praesidio. The company changed its name to DefenseStorm two years later, and expanded its operations from Seattle, Washington, where it still maintains an office, to Alpharetta, Georgia, where the company is currently headquartered.

DefenseStorm demonstrated PatternScout, its anomaly detection engine, at FinovateSpring 2017. PatternScout uses machine learning to identify potentially fraudulent activity in networks, and provides automated alerts to enable IT professionals and operations teams to stop cyberattacks before they spread.

The newly-forged strategic partnership between Alogent and DefenseStorm is a reminder of the importance of cybersecurity to the world of digital banking. The two companies – an end-to-end payment processing, content management, and digital banking technology provider, and a real-time cybersecurity and cybercompliance specialist – are teaming up to help institutions manage and control their digital workflow, including the ability to better defend themselves from outside threats.

“As financial institutions increasingly adopt digital, mobile, and self-service solutions to meet consumer demand, they must be increasingly diligent about protecting their operations and their customers from cyber threats,” Jason Schwabline, Alogent SVP of Product Management and Strategy explained. “We have made it a priority to help our customers address what can be a costly and labor intensive challenge by partnering with a company that focuses exclusively on bringing effective and affordable cybersecurity and cybercompliance to credit unions and banks.

“Alogent’s digital and cloud solutions are perfect complements to the DefenseStorm GRID,” company Chief Revenue Officer Steve Soukup added. “(GRID) leverages cloud technology to keep cybersecurity and cybercompliance continuously current, scalable, and affordable.” Soukup emphasized that the key to success in working with banks and credit unions on cybersecurity is focusing exclusively on these institutions’ needs. Doing so, according to Soukup, enables FIs to “detect, investigate and resolve outside threats, even when resources are constrained.”

Founded in 2015, DefenseStorm demonstrated its PatternScout anomaly detection engine at FinovateSpring 2017. The firm, with offices in Atlanta, Georgia; and Seattle, Washington, specializes in helping regional and community banks and credit unions meet the challenge of ever-evolving cyber threats. The DefenseStorm GRID is a co-managed, cloud-based, and compliance-automated solution that monitors all activity on the bank or credit union’s network, and compares this activity in real time to the firms’ cyberexposure readiness policy to help institutions become and remain both alert and accountable.

DefenseStorm has raised $14.9 million in funding, and includes TTV Capital, Washington Trust, Live Oak Banking Company, and Citizens National Bank among its investors. This summer, DefenseStorm announced that it had been picked by NAFCU as the preferred cloud-based cybersecurity partner. In March, it was named a Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). The company began the year with news of its partnership with American National Bank, a Florida-based community bank with more than $280 million in assets.

A trio of leading credit union CEOs representing the Preferred Partners program for NAFCU Services has selected DefenseStorm as the preferred partner for its cloud-based cybersecurity platform.

“With approximately 20 million cyber events occurring per day per financial institution, the volume and sophistication of today’s cyber threats are definitely challenging credit unions to maintain and prove ‘Cyber Safety and Soundness,’ DefenseStorm CEO Sean Feeney said. “For this reason, we are thrilled to partner with the NAFCU community, an organization that is entirely dedicated to the empowerment and betterment of credit unions.”

DefenseStorm CTO Sean Cassidy demonstrating the PatternScout anomaly detection engine at FinovateSpring 2017.

The combination of cybersecurity and compliance is what helped carry the day for DefenseStorm. The company’s GRID platform is a co-managed, cloud-based, compliance-automated solution that combines technology with human expertise in financial institution security and compliance. Built from the ground-up as a cloud-based solution, DefenseStorm’s platform provides durable, redundant, real-time service, making both analysis and remediation faster and more cost-effective. GRID features built-in FFIEC CAT and ACET compliance elements, and connects compliance policies to real-time alerts to make it easy for FIs to prove their compliance and security processes to regulators and examiners.

“We are proud to partner with DefenseStorm because they are so clearly dedicated to credit unions, and to providing them with real-time cyber safety and soundness,” NAFCU Service Corporation president Randy Salser said. “Their solutions are vital to the success, security, and stability of financial institutions.” A wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU), NAFCU Services fosters relationships between credit unions and industry partners from verticals including payments, risk management, and security.

With offices in Seattle, Washington and Atlanta, Georgia, DefenseStorm was founded in 2015 and has raised nearly $15 million in funding. In addition to demonstrating its PatternScout anomaly detection engine at FinovateSpring last year, the company’s CTO Sean Cassidy presented Cloud Security Fundamentals at our developers conference FinDEVr Silicon Valley 2016.

This spring, DefenseStorm was named a Top 40 Innovative Technology Company by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG). In February, the company announced a partnership with Florida-based American National Bank ($280 million in assets).