Ghent-based OutKept, a cybersecurity company, has secured €500K in a Seed round of funding led by Presto Ventures and Business angels (BAN Flanders).
OutKept helps organisations prevent phishing with an open community of ethical phishers.
Eduard Kucera, Partner at Presto Ventures says, “OutKept’s strategy of crowdsourcing potential phishing emails and educating their clients’ employees aligns perfectly with the current needs of enterprise security, especially in the face of increasingly sophisticated AI-fueled social engineering attacks.”
“This proactive and educational approach is a key player in strengthening the weakest link in current enterprise cybersecurity: human awareness.”
Jean-Marie Vliegen, an Angel investor at BAN Flanders adds, “Phishing simulations are a vital component to address the human risk factor in any comprehensive cyber risk mitigation programme.”
“The OutKept simulation approach through their ethical phishers community perfectly mimics real-world phishing threats and is a cost-effective awareness and education solution. It can be easily implemented across a variety of private and public organisations.”
Simulate realistic phishing attacks with the help of ethical phishers
Founded in 2020 by Simon Bauwens and Dieter Tine, OutKept is a phishing simulation platform that addresses human cyber risk for organisations.
The company’s approach involves automated, high-quality phishing simulations developed by an open community of ethical phishers. These ethical contributors are incentivised with bounties, similar to bug bounty programmes, for successfully crafting phishing emails.
Co-founder Bauwens says, “We started OutKept with the belief that cybersecurity is a real cat-and-mouse game, and so you better have many cats on your side.”
“Community-based models and bounty rewards have proven themselves to be highly effective in cybersecurity, and with OutKept, we bring this logic to phishing prevention.”
“Our phishing simulations are powered by a community of ethical phishers, some of them already leveraging the latest AI technologies just like real phishers do,” adds Bauwens.
A ‘Darwinistic’ algorithm enhances the platform by distributing successful phishing emails more prominently to relevant target groups, while less successful simulations are phased out. This improves the overall quality of simulations, leading to decreased interactions with phishing emails over time.
OutKept’s system operates without constant IT management or content creation, providing a sustainable solution for maintaining alertness to phishing threats. Clients typically experience a 50 per cent reduction in interactions with phishing emails within 2 to 3 months, claims OutKept.
The platform offers real-time monitoring through a live dashboard, allowing organisations to witness vulnerability reduction after one month. OutKept operates globally, engaging local ethical phishers in over 20 countries to conduct phishing simulations.
OutKept faces competition from established players like KnowBe4, Sophos, and Proofpoint, which are prominent American companies providing similar services.
Capital utilisation
The funds will support the international expansion of their platform, focusing on introducing their innovative approach to high-quality phishing simulations in new markets.
Co-founder Tinel says, “It is remarkable to see that there are various platforms to combat hacking through a crowdsourced community, but virtually no solution that prevents phishing in a similar way.”
“At the beginning of OutKept, we faced a technical challenge in turning phishing content, which could come from literally anyone, into secure content for training purposes. But with the support of our community and investors and a fine piece of technology, we have successfully started our journey to bring bug bounty hunting to the world of social engineering.”
Co-founder Bauwens adds, “We’re very happy to have raised funding that will allow us to reach many new organisations and ethical phishers around the world.”
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