OpenAI just made its first cybersecurity investment
Summary
That wouldnt be your actual CTO, but a spoof generated by Adaptive Security.Adaptive Securitys platform doesnt just spoof phone calls: It also covers texts and emails, while scoring which parts of a company might be most vulnerable and training staff to spot the risks.The startup focuses on hacks that require a human employee to do something theyre not supposed to, like click on a bad link. These kinds of social engineering hacks, while basic, have led to huge losses think of Axie Infinity, which lost over $600 million due to a fake job offer for one of its developers in 2022.AI tools have made social engineering hacks easier than ever, co-founder and CEO Brian Long told TechCrunch. Launched in 2023, Adaptive now has over 100 customers, with Long saying positive feedback from them helped attract OpenAI to the cap table.It doesnt hurt that Long is a veteran entrepreneur with two previous successes: mobile ad startup TapCommerce, which he sold to Twitter in 2014 (reportedly for over $100 million) and ad-tech firm Attentive, which was last valued at over $10 billion in 2021 according to one of its investors.Long told TechCrunch that Adaptive Security will use its latest funding mostly on hiring engineers to build out its product and keep up in the AI arms race against bad actors.Adaptive Security joins a long list of other cyber startups working on the boom in AI threats. Cyberhaven just raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation to help stop staff from putting sensitive info in tools like ChatGPT, Forbes reported. And deepfake detection startup GetReal just raised $17.5 million last month.As AI threats become more sophisticated, Long has one simple tip for company employees worried about getting their voice cloned by hackers.