GuardiCore raises $11M to protect data centers from within

We all know that blocking attacks from accessing data centers is not effective. Just think of the snooping government agencies have been able to do. Now companies have to acknowledge that activity and find better ways to deal with threats.

GuardiCore, a data center security startup, has developed technology for stopping threats from moving around once they’re inside a data center. And today the startup announced that it’s raised $11 million.

However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. With the rise of virtualization — creating multiple virtual machines for running applications on a single physical server — tracking attacks inside of data centers is hard. The company says “when multiple pairs of virtual machines communicate at rates of Gigabits per second, it is practically impossible to apply context aware security controls.”

This is the latest security software to deal with problems that arise when companies adopt new technologies — specifically with software-defined networking, GuardiCore says. Investors have also recently backed security startups like Internet-of-things-focused Mocana and Elastica, which focuses on securing cloud application usage.

GuardiCore deals with east-west data traffic at the rates of multi-terabit by ”dynamically re-routing traffic, without the attacker knowing, to a highly monitored stealth ‘ambush’ server,” according to its post. In this way, it’s capable of detecting and eliminating attacks in early stages.

Currently, GuardiCore’s technology is being evaluated at private clouds and data centers of leading enterprises and data center service providers. It will use the new money to productize and sell its technology.

The startup is based in Israel and was founded last year.

Battery Ventures led the round in GuardiCore. Greylock IL, an affiliate fund of Greylock Partners focused on investing in Israel and Europe, and other undisclosed strategic investors also participated.