No more mass worm attacks. That’s what Redwood City, CA-based Determina’s new product promises. Be it MS-Blaster, SQL Slammer, Code Red or Sasser, Determina’s SecureCore promises to pro-actively eliminate the threats of unknown malicious and destructive worms and computer attacks. SecureCore has been developed based on patent-pending “Memory Firewall” technology to eliminate the threat of memory-based attacks on all systems software across an entire server infrastructure.
After years of research by MIT professor Saman Amarasinghe, the company’s chief technology officer, Araksha, (Sanskrit for security), was launched in May 2003. Along with its launch, the company picked up its Series A funding, an exclusive license from MIT, and Nand Mulchandani as CEO. The company recently emerged from stealthmode, re-christened Determina. It has also announced that is has raised a total of $19m. New investor U.S. Venture Partners led the company’s most recent round, a Series B, which closed in April for $16 million, joined by existing investors Mayfield and Bessemer Venture Partners. These investors co-led Araksha’s $3 million Series A round in May of last year.
Mulchandani said that he believes that Determina is the “next generation” intrusion prevention company. First generation companies, he said, just looked for anomalous behavior. The next-stage firms produced signature-based products, he said, something that Determina moves away from. “Now, Determina, with our breakthrough memory firewall technology, provides true intrusion prevention without signatures or updates,” he said.
Determina has 20 employees with an R&D facility in Cambridge, MA. It has already signed up with a couple of customers: Thermo Electron Corp., a scientific equipment manufacturer; Finaplex Inc., a financial software company; Business Technology Alliance LLC, a provider of applications services to the asset management industry; and Stanford University.