Tel Aviv-based Memcyco, a real-time website impersonation detection and prevention solution, has raised $10 million in a seed funding round led by Capri Ventures and Venture Guides. This investment indicates the growing demand for solutions that protect brand reputation online and the changing ways in which companies seek to establish trust with consumers.
Memcyco offers real-time protection for digital brands against malicious actors seeking to impersonate their website and fool customers into sharing their personal and financial credentials online. The technology protects both brands and their customers from falling victim to online imposter scams and is the first solution on the market to provide protection in real time.
Preventing brandjacking and reputational harm
"Brandjacking" has emerged as a significant threat to modern companies. The term refers to situations in which cyber attackers clone a website and impersonate a reputed company, tricking customers into fraudulent purchases. A new form of cybercrime, brandjacking lies outside the scope of traditional cybersecurity tools.
Cybersecurity tools typically focus on repelling attacks targeting a network. However, brandjacking involves a malicious actor cloning a legitimate website and perpetrating fraud using the company's brand equity. As such, traditional security tools have no touch with such actions since the fraudster does not need to infiltrate a network to clone a website or digital presence. As a result, even the most sophisticated tools fall short.
According to the U.S FTC's Consumer Sentinel Network's data book, 20% of American consumers lost around $2.6 billion as a result of imposter scams. The significant majority of those losses stemmed from stolen identities and card numbers.
To mitigate these attacks, Memcyco offers brands a Proof of Source Authenticity (PoSATM) solution that issues a Red Alert to their customers if they enter a fraudulent version of their website, prompting them to go to safety. Simultaneously, PoSATM provides the brand with full details of the attack as it is happening and alerts security teams. PoSATM uses artificial intelligence to study behavioral patterns and identify and alert organizations when irregular activity occurs. Memcyo also equips brands with a digital watermark displayed on their website for customers to instantly recognize (which can also be personalized by the customer), proving the site's authenticity.
Edelman Research's 2019 study into consumer behavior drivers placed brand trust as the primary buying consideration. The study indicated digital trust as a function of product experience, customer experience, and a brand's societal impact. Understandably, consumers' concerns surrounding these pillars are increasing: Edelman's study revealed more than half of respondents had growing concerns for these issues.
In such an environment, companies must protect their online reputation - and their customer base - at all costs. Security and fraud prevention are primary drivers of sales, not just add-ons as they were in the past.
"Everyone knows someone who has fallen victim to a phishing-based brandjacking scam," said Alex Pinchev, Founder and Managing Partner at Capri Ventures. "Memcyco is the first company to provide a real-time solution to that problem, while existing approaches are mostly after-the-fact and leave organizations not knowing which users fell victim to the attack."
Protecting consumers with advanced technology
As the first real-time solution of its kind, Memcyco is minimizing the cost of damages to both brands and their customers, easing user education efforts, and promoting customer digital trust in online brands.
"At Memcyco, we have introduced a new paradigm for preventing website impersonation by providing multiple layers of protection for companies and their customers," said Israel Mazin, CEO and co-founder of Memcyco. "This investment from such experienced leaders in cyber security delivers a strong vote of confidence in Memcyco's ability to deliver a more secure and trustworthy digital ecosystem."
With the latest round of funding, Memcyco plans to improve its PoSATM solution and increase its user base.
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