Generation AI has greatly expanded the toolkit available to hackers and other bad actors. From deepening your CEO to creating fake receipts, you can do everything.
Openai, the biggest generation AI startup of all of them, knows this better than anyone else. They also invested in another AI startup that would help companies defend against these types of attacks.
New York-based Adaptive Security has raised a $43 million Series A co-led by Openai’s Startup Fund and Andreessen Horowitz. This was Openai’s first investment in an open security startup, and Openai was confirmed by TechCrunch.
Adaptive security simulates AI-generated “hacks” to train employees to spot these threats. To listen to the CTO, I pick up the phone and ask for a verification code. It’s a spoofing generated by adaptive security, not your actual CTO.
Adaptive Security’s platform is more than just calling. It also covers texts and emails, but it also scores which parts are the most vulnerable and trains staff to find risk.
Startups focus on hacks where human employees need to do things that aren’t supposed to be, such as clicking on bad links. These types of “social engineering” hacks have basically led to huge losses. This is considering Axie Infinity, who lost over $600 million due to a fake job offer for one of the developers in 2022.
AI tools have made social engineering hacking easier than ever, co-founder and CEO Brian Long told TechCrunch. Released in 2023, Adaptive has over 100 customers. Positive feedback from them helped attract Openai to the Cap Table.
For a long time, he has achieved two previous successes as a veteran entrepreneur. Mobile advertising startup TapCommerce is the advertising tech company Attentive, which was sold to Twitter in 2014 (reportedly over $100 million) and last in 2021, according to one investor.
Long told TechCrunch that Adaptive Security will primarily use the latest funds to build products on hiring engineers and keep it against bad actors on AI’s “Arms Race.”
Adaptive Security joins a long list of other cyberstartups tackling the AI threat boom. CyberHaven raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation, helping stop staff from entering sensitive information on tools like ChatGPT, Forbes reported. There is also SNYK. SNYK has partially acknowledged the rise of volatile AI-generated codes to help push the $300 million ARR north. And Deepfake Detection Startup GetReal raised $17.5 million last month.
As AI threats become more refined, Long has one simple hint for company employees who worry about their voices being cloned by hackers. “Please delete your voicemail,” he recommends.
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