Cowbell Cyber Secures $25 Million in Additional Funding for AI-Powered Cybersecurity Detection
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Cowbell is a four-year-old company, formerly known as 'Cowbell Cyber', that offers cyber threat monitoring and insurance to help clients cover costs in the event of data breaches or ransomware payments. The company has experienced a remarkable year, growing by 49% so far, with year-over-year growth showing no signs of slowing down.
Today, the Pleasanton, California-based company announced it has raised an additional $25 million in funding from Prosperity7 Ventures, the diversified growth fund of Aramco Ventures, which itself is a subsidiary of Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco. This is noteworthy because Aramco has been both a target and victim of significant cyberattacks, including one of the largest in history.
Cowbell co-founder and CEO Jack Kudale wrote in response to questions from a VentureBeat spokesperson via email: 'The platform monitors 38 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), processing 15TB of standardized data and over 12 billion cumulative signals.'
Cowbell offers multiple products designed to meet the evolving needs and operational scales of client businesses, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises and multinational corporations.
At a high level, Cowbell's adaptive cyber insurance aligns insurance coverage and pricing with an organization's changing cyber risk profile through continuous, automated risk assessment, risk reduction incentives, and closed-loop risk management.
Image credit: AI-generated image, licensed by MidjourneyCowbell uses artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) algorithms to monitor customer network intrusions and test their cyber readiness, examining over 1,000 qualities related to customer networks and software.
In April this year, the company launched MooGPT, its first GPT-powered generative AI conversational assistant designed to help customers quickly answer questions about Cowbell's cyber insurance policies and risk assessments.
Cowbell's AI/ML platform can score eight major categories of customer network systems that may be targeted for attacks on a scale from 1 to 100. These categories include network security, cloud security, endpoint security, dark intelligence, fund transfer mechanisms and processes, ransomware prevention and preparedness, compliance, and supply chain.
These scores, known as Cowbell Factors, collectively form "a rating index that helps assess an organization's cyber risk and, consequently, the appropriate insurance coverage."
Customers can view their Cowbell Factors scores and recommendations for improvement in an easy-to-understand dashboard called Cowbell Insights.
It is reported that ransomware attacks are rapidly increasing, up 153% compared to a year ago, with small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in heavily affected industries such as healthcare and manufacturing being primary targets.
The sheer volume of such cyberattacks—where hackers use malware to seize control of a victim company's computer systems and/or data, holding them hostage in exchange for untraceable cryptocurrency ransom payments—has led some experts to suggest that SMBs should accept them as inevitable.
However, Cowbell believes that even in such cases, the cost for businesses to recover their systems and data from attackers should be lower.
Therefore, the company claims that "Cowbell's specialized risk engineering and claims management services prevent extortion payments in over 74% of cases, and when ransom must be paid, the amount is reduced to an average of 26% of the initial demand."