With $11 million in funding, Naoris Protocol will use blockchain to make networks more secure as they grow
Blockchain-based startup NDSE Cyber, which does business as Naoris Protocol, said today it has closed an $11.5 million funding round to build out an AI-based “cybersecurity mesh” that it promises will better protect networks over time as they grow.
The startup is backed by a number of high-profile investors, chief among them Tim Draper of Draper Associates, who led the round. Other investors include Holt Xchange, Holdun Family Officer, SDC Management, Expert Dojo, Uniera, Level One Robotics and several angel investors, including some “well-known” NBA stars and tennis players.
Naoris Protocol is on a mission to innovate network security. The problem it tries to solve is that today’s computer networks can never be fully secured. That’s because an attacker only needs to compromise a single device within any network to gain access. What this means is that the more a network grows, the greater the number of potential entry points for attackers. With its blockchain-based cybersecurity network, Naoris aims to transform existing networks that are highly centralized into decentralized networks made up of “trusted machines” that can help validate each other.
The idea is quite simple. Each new device added to a network is securely onboarded, ensuring that it has no vulnerabilities. Once that is done, it becomes a trusted validating node that is then tasked with helping to secure all the other devices on the network. That is again achieved with Naori’s unique decentralized proof of security consensus mechanism, where validators provide an incentive to agree on the security status of the other entities.
The underlying blockchain technology enables each network participant to perform trustless verification. The second element of Naori’s protocol is cryptocurrency, namely the CYBER token, which must be held by network participants and used to request each node to continuously scan other devices for vulnerabilities. Naoris argues that networks actually become more secure as more devices are added, in direct contrast to today’s centralized networks, which become increasingly vulnerable as they grow.
Naoris explained that the blockchain enables it to record evidence of trust with both confidentiality and provable integrity. It adds that the protocol is designed to supplement, rather than replace, existing cyber security systems. Its main goal is to detect and validate enforcement, which it does through a hyperstructure-inspired network that can detect security breaches almost as soon as they occur.
The company grandly says it is chasing a $10 trillion global opportunity – the estimated cost to businesses of cybercrime in 2025. “Our vision is to harness the cryptographic power of the many through blockchain to fundamentally change how trust happens between devices and applications on internet”, said CEO of Naoris Protocol, David Carvalho.
Naoris Protocol plans to have a concept of its system up and running by the end of the year before rolling out the full product to customers in banking, healthcare, civil infrastructure and other industries by mid-2023.
