To Combat Soaring Network Abuse Incidents, Abusix received Funding from Target Partners

Investment will fund market expansion and network security product development

Palo Alto / Munich, February 12, 2014. Munich-based venture capital firm Target Partners (www.targetpartners.de) has invested a seven-figure sum in Abusix, Inc. (www.abusix.com), a Silicon Valley- and Karlsruhe, Germany-based provider of automated network abuse identification and rapid resolution products for enterprise and ISP customers. Abusix will use the funds to further expand development and sales of its flagship product AbuseHQ in the U.S. and EMEA.

Innovative products and scalable technology

Target Partners was attracted to Abusix because of its innovative approach to identifying and resolving a wide array of network abuse issues. Unlike traditional security software vendors, Abusix shifts the security paradigm away from its focus on symptoms to attack network abuse directly at its source. Abusix combines massive amounts of real-time, proprietary network abuse data and sophisticated algorithmic analysis to automate network abuse identification, breach monitoring and resolution for both enterprise and ISP customers.
”We’ve been closely following this space, and Abusix’s experienced team impressed us with their approach to providing highly scalable, enterprise-level network security,” said Waldemar Jantz, partner at Target Partners. “The company’s success in attracting tier-one customers and partners convinced us that Abusix is well-positioned to address the huge market opportunity.”

Great market potential

Evidenced by the near-daily headlines of big corporations suffering from network security breaches, Abusix serves a rapidly growing and increasingly important market. Enterprises and ISPs’ current network abuse solutions can no longer effectively handle the growing number and sophistication of network security attacks. “Abusix’s ability to quickly identify compromised hosts and initiate appropriate escalation paths enables customers to firewall and resolve their network security issues via a safe, self-service environment,” said Tobias Knecht, Abusix CEO. “By attacking abuse at its source, we provide sustainable and much more effective network security – and we do it at a significantly lower cost than competitive vendors or homegrown solutions.”

About Target Partners:
With €230 million under management, Target Partners is one of the leading early-stage venture capital firms in Germany. Target Partners invests in new start-up and early-stage companies, and supports them with venture capital during their build-out and expansion phases. With many years of experience as managers, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, the team at Target Partners supports entrepreneurs in developing and marketing products and services, building organizations, raising money and taking companies public in Europe and the United States.
For more details: www.targetpartners.de, follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/targetpartners or become a friend on Facebook: facebook.com/targetpartners.

Press contact Target Partners:
Sprachperlen GmbH
Agency for enterprise communication
Helena Pröpster
Ehrengutstraße 5
80469 Munich, Germany
Tel.: +49 89 411 53 199
Fax: +49 89 411 53 200
e-Mail: helena.proepster@sprachperlen.de

About Abusix, Inc.:
Based in Silicon Valley with operations in Karlsruhe, Germany, Abusix shifts the security paradigm away from its traditional focus on symptoms and attacks network abuse at its source. Abusix combines massive amounts of real-time, proprietary network abuse data and sophisticated algorithmic analysis to automate network abuse identification and resolution for both enterprise and ISP customers. Available as a SaaS offering, Abusix’s AbuseHQ enables customers to resolve network abuse easily and safely, while eliminating the high cost of internal abuse departments and home-built technology solutions.
For more details please see: www.abusix.com, follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/abusix

Press contact Abusix:
Abusix, Inc.
Tobias Knecht
720 University Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
+1(408)9603785
tk@abusix.com

Abusix erhält Finanzierung von Target Partners

Millionen-Investition finanziert Marktexpansion und Produktentwicklung im Kampf gegen Netzwerkangriffe und Daten-Diebstahl

Palo Alto / München, 12. Februar 2014. Die Münchner Venture Capital-Gesellschaft Target Partners (www.targetpartners.de) investiert in Abusix, Inc. (www.abusix.com), einen Spezialisten im Kampf gegen Netzwerkangriffe und Daten-Diebstahl. Abusix, mit Sitz im Silicon Valley und einer Niederlassung in Karlsruhe, entwickelt automatisierte Systeme, die Angriffe auf IT-Netzwerke identifizieren und schnell abwehren. Zu den Kunden zählen sowohl Unternehmen als auch Internet-Service-Provider und Hoster. Mit der Finanzierung wird Abusix die Entwicklung und den Vertrieb des Flaggschiff-Produkts AbuseHQ in den USA, in Europa, im Nahen Osten und in Asien vorantreiben.

Innovative Produkte und skalierbare Technologie

Abusix überzeugte Target Partners mit einem innovativen Ansatz, die Verarbeitung von Abuse-Mails durch Automatisierung effizienter machen. Im Gegensatz zu bisherigen Ansätzen verschiebt Abusix den Fokus weg von den Symptomen hin zum Ursprung des Angriffs. Abusix kombiniert große Echtzeit-Datenmengen von Netzwerkangriffen mit komplexen algorithmischen Verfahren, um so automatisierte Informationen über Spam-Attacken oder Malware zu erhalten. Sicherheitsrelevante Ereignisse in Netzwerken werden automatisiert erkannt und gelöst.
„Wir haben den Markt für Sicherheit von IT-Netzwerken intensiv beobachtet. Das erfahrene Team von Abusix hat uns mit seinem hoch skalierbaren, innovativen Ansatz beeindruckt“, sagt Waldemar Jantz, Partner bei Target Partners. „Der Erfolg des Unternehmens bei namhaften Kunden und Partnern hat uns überzeugt, dass Abusix bestens positioniert ist, den großen und stark wachsenden Markt der Netzwerksicherheit zu adressieren.“

Großes Marktpotenzial

Bestätigt durch die nahezu täglichen Presse-Meldungen über Sicherheitslücken und Datenverluste bei großen Unternehmen und Internet Service Providern, adressiert Abusix einen schnell wachsenden und zunehmend an Bedeutung gewinnenden Markt. Unternehmen, Internet-Service-Provider und andere IT-Netzbetreiber sehen sich einer ständig wachsenden Bedrohung durch Netzwerkattacken gegenüber, die sie effektiv bewältigen müssen.
„Unsere Lösungen identifizieren gefährdete Systeme schnell und leiten angemessene Eskalationsverfahren ein. Unsere Kunden können Datenverlust, Datenschutzverletzungen, Netzwerkangriffen und der Verbreitung von Malware in einer sicheren Self-Service-Umgebung begegnen“, sagt Tobias Knecht, CEO von Abusix. „Indem wir Missbrauch am Ursprung bekämpfen, erreichen wir Netzwerksicherheit nachhaltiger und effizienter – und können damit die Gesamtbetriebskosten deutlich senken“, so Knecht weiter.

Über Target Partners:
Mit 230 Millionen € gehört Target Partners zu den führenden Early-Stage Venture Capital-Gesellschaften in Deutschland. Die Gesellschaft finanziert junge Firmen beim Start-up und in der Frühphase mit Wagniskapital und unterstützt sie während ihrer Entwicklungs- und Expansionsphase. Mit langjähriger Erfahrung als Manager, Unternehmer und Venture Capitalists steht das Team von Target Partners Unternehmen zur Seite, um Produkte und Dienstleistungen zu entwickeln und zu vermarkten, um Organisationsstrukturen aufzubauen, Finanzierungen zu sichern und Unternehmen in Europa und USA an die Börse zu bringen. Mehr unter: www.targetpartners.de, Twitter: twitter.com/targetpartners oder Facebook: facebook.com/targetpartners.

Pressekontakt Target Partners:
Sprachperlen GmbH
Agentur für Unternehmenskommunikation
Helena Pröpster
Ehrengutstraße 5
80469 München
Tel.: +49 89 411 53 199
Fax: +49 89 411 53 200
e-Mail: helena.proepster@sprachperlen.de

Über Abusix, Inc.:
Abusix, mit Sitz im Silicon Valley und einer Niederlassung in Karlsruhe, verschiebt den Fokus weg von den Symptomen hin zum Ursprung von Sicherheitsproblemen, um Angriffe auf IT-Netzwerke grundlegend an der Wurzel zu bekämpfen. Abusix kombiniert große Echtzeit-Datenmengen von Netzwerkangriffen mit komplexen algorithmischen Verfahren, um automatisierte Informationen über Angriffe auf IT-Netzwerke zu erhalten. Sicherheitsrelevante Ereignisse in Netzwerken werden automatisiert erkannt und gelöst. Das Angebot richtet sich sowohl an Unternehmen als auch an Internet Service Provider und Hoster. Als Software-as-a-Service Lösung ermöglicht das Produkt AbuseHQ, Netzwerkprobleme schnell und sicher zu lösen – und so die Gesamtbetriebskosten von IT-Netzwerken deutlich zu senken.
Mehr unter: www.abusix.com, Twitter: twitter.com/abusix

Pressekontakt Abusix:
Abusix GmbH
Dean Ceulic
Haid-und-Neu-Strasse 18-20
76131 Karlsruhe
0721/75406590
dc@abusix.com

Abusix in Outer Space: Some Updates on blackhole.mx

When we started the blackhole.mx project almost two years ago we weren’t absolutely sure what to expect. In the meantime blackhole.mx has developed to a success story!
blackhole.mx is currently receiving up to 2 millions of spam and phishing emails per day through redirected domain names and the available plugins. This is not comparable to the tremendous amount we receive through our spamfeedme traps, but: blackhole.mx is mainly user induced, giving us

• the opportunity to have a broader view on what’s going out there,
• and helping security vendors to tune their systems even better,
• completing effectively efforts to combat network abuse.

So, thanks to all people participating and helping us and our customers to fight spam and phishing much better!

If you want to participate, please have a look at the website, it’s really easy to be part of it:

• Install the Thunderbird Plugin and start reporting spam and phishing emails. By the way, the plugin has been voted one of the top five apps help secure Thunderbird
• If you’re administering Roundcube installations just install the plugin which will enable your users to report spam and phishing emails
• And, last but not least, redirect your domains which you don’t use for email services

That’s it. And, it’s great fun to contribute, since you will know it makes the universe a better place!

XQueue adds innovative Spam & Phishing Radar to its Email Software – based on abusix datafeeds

The Email Service Provider XQueue is the first to implement a Spam & Phishing Radar to help customers improve reputation and deliverability. The Spam & Phishing Radar detects if the customers’ brands are spoofed or otherwise misused and will be part of the Maileon platform. Spam and phishing are still a main threat to companies and Internet users. XQueue will launch the Spam & Phishing Radar at the dmexco in Cologne.

XQueue has developed the Spam & Phishing Radar in cooperation with abusix, the leading spamtrap datafeed provider, as an early warning system to provide customers with the ability to check if their brands and domain names are currently misused. Thus, it helps track down the current reputation and the likeliness of being caught in spam and phishing filters.

The deliverability of email senders is not only defined by their own behaviour, but also significantly by those misusing a sender’s reputation. To ensure deliverability this has to be taken into account, nowadays.

The tool is going to be improved steadily and it already offers statistical insights. The official launch will take place at the dmexco Cologne/Germany, Hall 7, Booth F017. A demo version is already available.

Abuse Contact DB Updates

We have updated the Abuse Contact Database to improve the overall usage experience, new features include:

• RIPE Abuse Contact Finder proxy
• We have added support for new RIRs (TWNIC, RADB, KRNIC)
• Extensive rework on our backend and DNS frontend which results in faster and more accurate updates

Features included:

• Easy DNS queries
• Abuse contacs for IPv6 addresses supported
• Support for ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, AFRINIC abuse contacts
• Command-line tool querycontacts available
• For more info see the project website

All improvements are transparent to you. So there is no need to update your current processes.

And, the changes should result in a better IP coverage.

Sinkhole Data and Botnet Reporting: We do it again.

We’re happy to announce that we’re reporting data from bot infected systems again. We initially started to send out reports about Grum bot infected systems to network owners which led to a significant decrease of infected machines and systems – because network owners really do care!

Today we have extended this type of reporting to the following types of botnets:

• Alina
• Black Energy
• And, last, but not least: Grum

The reporting format we use is based on x-arf, you will find it on the x-arf website and it is specifically designed for reporting bot infected computers. Thanks to the DFN-CERT for compiling it.

So, if you are receiving reports of this kind from us, this will provide you with valuable data and the information about that something has to be done on your side – which usually is a good chance to help your customers to get rid of malware and other kinds of technical problems.

Please notice, the reported data isn’t a blacklist. The reported data is based on requests made by infected computer systems.

If you have any feedback or want to support us, just let us know!

FAQ – Friendly Asked Questions

What is the time zone of the incidents?

The time zone is UTC.

Could you provide the destination IP addresses?

We’re sorry but the destination IP addresses are confidential. The data is received on former Botnet Command&Control servers, therefor we can’t risk loosing this valuable data source by disclosing the IP addresses.