Analysts have estimated that cyber attacks will cost an estimated $10.5 trillion in damage annually by 2025, but security operations teams are understaffed, overburdened and lack the resources necessary to fully defend against attacks. In addition, the acceleration of digitalisation means security teams need to respond to thousands of alerts every day from EDR, firewall, IDS, email, and cloud security solutions.
Most teams are only able to fully research about 10% of daily events, leaving open the likely possibility of missing early warning signs of serious security breaches.
Seattle-headquartered Dropzone AI, an autonomous alert investigation platform for security operations teams, automates the time-consuming, repetitive work of investigating alerts. The platform delivers pre-trained autonomous AI security agents that work alongside human analysts on security operations teams.
Secures $3.5M funding
In a recent development, Dropzone AI has secured $3.5 million in seed funding led by Decibel Partners, joined by Pioneer Square Ventures Fund. Notable angel investors such as Oliver Friedrichs, CEO of Pangea Security and founder and former CEO of Phantom Cyber, Jon Oberheide co-founder and former CTO of Duo Security, and Jesse Rothstein, co-founder and CTO of ExtraHop, also participated in the round.
The availability of the company’s autonomous AI security agent was also revealed. This software product employs large language models (LLMs) to replicate the cognitive processes and methodologies of skilled security analysts. Capable of analysing and examining security alerts from diverse origins, the agent generates comprehensive reports and suggestions for human analysts.
“Ninety-nine percent of the security world struggles to sort through the number of security alerts they get,” said Jerry Perullo, longtime CISO of Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of NYSE, and Chairman of the FS-ISAC (Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center) an industry consortium dedicated to reducing cyber-risk in the global financial system. “Too many legitimate alerts are never touched, while false positives consume valuable human time. With AI, not only can analysis occur more quickly and consistently, but all the enrichment and investigation avenues can be explored every time. That’s a game-changer.”
“Cybersecurity teams need to update their defensive scheme with the best technology available, and Dropzone is an essential tool for every company that wants to rapidly augment its security operations team to face the increasing cyber threats of today’s world,” said Jon Sakoda, founder of Decibel Partners. “We are incredibly privileged to partner with Edward and to help him deliver on his vision of using AI to deploy autonomous reinforcements – this changes the game for cybersecurity teams and brings much-needed help to the front lines.”
Autonomous AI security agents
Dropzone is founded in 2021 by cyber defense and AI expert Edward Wu. It mimics the thought process and techniques of expert security analysts to thoroughly and autonomously investigate all alerts, so human analysts can focus on higher-value security work.
Dropzone gives teams an instant, AI security force that integrates with existing security systems and data; fully analyses and prioritises every alert using both security systems and data sources, including phishing, exploitation, endpoint and cloud alerts, among others;
produces detailed investigation reports; and lets teams investigate even deeper through its expert chatbot assistant.
“Hackers and defenders have been in a technological arms race for years,” said Edward Wu, founder and CEO of Dropzone AI. “Every new advancement from scripts, to machine learning and now AI, has allowed hackers to weaponise their attacks at greater efficacy, speed and scale, multiplying the pressure on security teams. Companies must confront the new reality that we’ve reached an inflection point where humans alone can’t keep up anymore. They need to be armed with an entirely new and better way to automate and enable their defensive forces.”
