Brandon Spikes, a Graduate of the Silicon Valley Founder Institute Graduate, is the founder of Spikes Security, an IT isolation security company he started in 2012. The company won awards for its AirGap security product that prevents browser-borne malware from entering corporate networks and from infecting endpoints. Now, only three years from its founding, the Silicon Valley startup Spikes Security has been acquired by Aurionpro, a leader in enterprise security and banking solutions. The acquisition will create a new subsidiary by merging Aurionpro's enterprise security division with Spikes security. The new division will headquarter in Silicon Valley and operate in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Aurionpro will own 80% of the new subsidiary.
Spikes' Background
Before starting Spikes Security, Brandon Spikes spent 20 years building highly secure IT systems. The last ten years he spent at SpaceX where the constant barrage of cyber security attacks provided invaluable experience. Spikes decided that the one way to protect enterprise companies against the constant cyber attacks was to isolate all web contact outside the company's networks. This idea gave birth to Spikes Security's innovation in cyber security, ISLA, the web malware isolation appliance. He called his signature product AirGap, which creates virtual machines for each user's browser request. It acts outside the company's firewall by isolating all web traffic and turning it into a virtual image that AirGap then delivers over a proprietary firewall to the user. Malware stays outside the company's network. Malware can lay dormant within a corporation's network for months, undiscovered, until it wakes up and wreaks havoc on the system. In isolating all web traffic outside the network, any malware or viral infections that lay dormant do so within AirGap's perimeters and not in the corporation's network.
In April 2016, a MarketWired.com press release quoted Brandon Spikes on his innovation: "It is no longer necessary for cyber security leaders to consider the best malware defense to be obsolete detection mechanisms and marginally quicker response time. We've solved the most important and challenging cyber security problem with our ability to isolate browsers from malware, and we're excited about the impact this will have on the security of our critical infrastructure, government networks, and the future adoption of web services. We are honored by 1105 Media's recognition of Spikes Security, and its recognition of the importance of this issue."
Awards
Spikes anticipates that his isolation solution will not only help corporations but will prove useful for government agencies as well. In 2015, Spikes' browser isolation system garnered an award from 1105 Media, publishers of Security Products and Security-Today.com, who presented the company with the 2015 Govies award. The Govie is a Government security award for intrusion detection and prevention.
Spikes Security also received the 2015 MVP Award from Computer Technology Review.
Creating Buzz
On April 5, 2016, Spikes Security announced the cyber industry's first report on the role that isolation technology has as a defense against web-based malware. Osterman Research started in 2001 and provides market research, cost data, cost models, bench marking and other services to technology companies to help them innovate and improve products they market to the community.
Osterman conducted its research with security personnel from 150 companies (with median personnel of 1,600) across the US to determine their ideas about isolation technology and whether they had plans to use such technology. The study showed that for 60% of all organizations consider web browsers a critical part of their business. For 1 out of 10 organizations, web browsers are the most important application they use. Employees use the web browser to access applications, for social media purposes, and other business tools. The key findings of the report are: (1) what isolation technology does for security professionals, and (2) isolation technology prevents attacks on vulnerable web browsers.
