Singapore-based startup Right-Hand Cybersecurity has announced raising $5 million in a Series A funding round led by Jack Selby, a former executive at PayPal, and his firm AZ-VC, the largest venture capital firm in Arizona.
The startup said the funding will enable the company to expand its operations across Asia and the US and invest heavily in its Human Risk Management platform.
The platform is designed to improve employee behaviour in real-time, reducing the likelihood of cybersecurity breaches caused by human error. The company’s platform consolidates employee security behaviours and alerts in real-time from various security technologies and assigns a risk score to different behaviours, enabling stakeholders to interpret employee risk in plain business terms.
The platform then analyses the data to generate real-time interactive and adaptive training that enables individuals to master cybersecurity behaviours.
Founder and CEO, Theo Nasser, said that Right-Hand goes beyond simply ‘checking the box’ for improving user behaviours to reduce cybersecurity risks. He said that the company tailors learning materials to individual behaviours and monitors employee risk profiles, reducing security alerts for the Security Operation Center.
Right-Hand’s approach to tracking and changing behaviours has been quickly favoured by major enterprise customers, including Western Alliance Bank and Sleek, a Singapore-based technology startup that offers digital accounting and compliance services for businesses.
A report by IBM Security and Ponemon Institute estimates that a company breach in Singapore costs SGD 3.65 million (USD 2.7 million), while in Australia, cybercrimes cost businesses and individuals over AUD 1.4 billion (USD 1.0 billion) in 2020, according to the Australian Cyber Security Centre. Since most breaches are caused by human error, behaviour change and the human’s role in cybersecurity have never been more important.
Right-Hand aims to expand its platform integrations with commonly adopted technologies to improve employee behaviours and lower their risk tendencies. The company also plans to keep the training experience crisp, gamified and to the point, making it a win-win for security teams and employees alike.
Selby praised Right-Hand’s approach, saying that the company is breaking the dogma of ‘check of the box’ security training by creating a platform that changes behaviours and significantly reduces security risks in real-time.
Michael Hart, the Chief Technology Officer of Sleek, commended Right-Hand, offering similar approval and endorsement of their Human Risk Management platform. He said that the platform has enabled their organisation to achieve compliance requirements and strengthen their cyberculture and employee security behaviours.
With Right-Hand’s Human Risk Management platform, Sleek has been able to automate security training for new hire onboarding and deliver relevant content based on their user and business needs.
