MTS Venture Fund Invests 90 Million Rubles in Phishman, a Developer of Cyber Literacy Training System for Employees
Moscow, Russia - MTS PJSC (MOEX: MTSS), a digital ecosystem, announces investments of the MTS Venture Fund in Phishman — a Russian developer of automated systems for analyzing, testing and training employees of companies in cyberattack protection. The investments will total 90 million rubles.
Phishman allows companies to reduce staff exposure to cyber threats. The Security Awareness System (staff awareness of cybersecurity) helps to teach employees how to correctly respond to attacks, increases their vigilance and resistance to intruders’ tricks.
This is achieved through a cyclic training process. The platform collects information about users’ behavior in the company’s network via security systems, as well as simulates phishing emails. Employees who failed to identify phishing or whose security system worked take a range of training courses on Phishman portal for developing cyber literacy. The system collects statistics on the dynamics of training and tests employees on the covered materials. The statistical data are available in the form of reports and help to understand which employees are particularly vulnerable.
Further, the process of monitoring, training and testing is automated based on different scenarios: onboarding of new team members, exposure to relevant phishing attacks, and protection of sensitive information. After a month of using the system, a share of those who fall for intruders’ tricks decreases by 70%.
Phishman is one of the key players in the information security awareness market in terms of the quality of the training process and the number of controlled scenarios. The main feature of Phishman is the adaptability of the platform that enables embedding a solution in any architecture and ensuring additional advantages for companies from building an ecosystem of cybersecurity technologies. The adaptability is achieved through a wide range of technical solutions with which Phishman is integrated, and it ensures additional opportunities when building an integrated protection system. For instance, integration with SOAR systems makes it possible to automate responses of IT and information security services to the unsafe behavior of employees.
Following the transaction, Phishman products will be included in the portfolio of managed cybersecurity services of MTS RED, a subsidiary of MTS in cyber threat protection. The transaction is one of the stages of implementing MTS RED strategy in forming a product portfolio that will cover completely all types of cyber threats via a single interface.
MTS RED and Phishman will be involved in technological development of the Security Awareness products. The expertise exchange will help to quickly supplement them with relevant schemes of phishing attacks, expand a list of product-compatible information security solutions and a number of controlled scenarios. It enables creating a highly mature solution that customers will be able to easily integrate in the unified ecosystem of the integrated protection system of a company and achieve the highest results thereby.
“We stick to a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity, so we are focused not only on protecting systems, but also on enhancing the cyber literacy of people. Employees are one of the weakest links in the companies’ defense against cyberattacks. Our records indicate that about two-thirds of the infrastructure hackings begin with phishing emails targeting employees. Such attacks are effective, easy to implement and do not require serious resources from intruders. The inclusion of Phishman in MTS RED ecosystem will enrich the portfolio of services with technologies for increasing the cyber literacy of employees and reducing the exposure of customer personnel to cyberattacks,” said Evgenia Naumova, MTS Cybersecurity Director and MTS RED General Director.
“This transaction will allow Phishman to implement its best potential and reinforce its competences and presence in the cybersecurity services market through cooperation with such ambitious player as MTS RED”, said Aleksei Gorelkin, Phishman General Director.
The investments of the MTS Venture Fund will be used for business development and elaboration of new solutions. According to Phishman, the market environment and synergy with MTS RED will make it possible to maintain the growth and increase the revenue of the company.
About the MTS Venture Fund
The MTS Corporate Venture Fund was established in 2019 based on the MTS StartUp Hub Innovation and Investment Center. The fund is focused on startups of Round A+/B having a strategic value for MTS. The investments total up to USD 5 m. Throughout its existence, the MTS corporate fund has invested in eight technological companies. The portfolio companies get expert support, access to API, clouds, and sales channels, as well as an opportunity to launch advertising campaigns on the MTS Marketer platform on favorable terms.
About MTS RED
MTS RED is an ecosystem of technologies, services and cybersecurity services that solves a full range of customers’ tasks in terms of reducing cyber risks. The combination of cutting-edge technologies, robust processes and professional team makes the Cybersecurity Function of MTS one of the strongest players in the industry.
About Phishman
Phishman was founded in 2016 by a group of experts for creating information security products to counter social engineering. It is a resident of Skolkovo and is included in the Register of Russian software.
photo source freepik
