Build.security

Build.security was a cybersecurity firm established in Tel Aviv, Israel, in January 2020 by co-founders Amit Kanfer (CEO) and Dekel Braunstein (CTO). The company was created with a developer-first mindset to address the complexities of application authorization. Kanfer, a cybersecurity industry veteran, previously served in the Israeli Army and later relocated to Austin, Texas, after the company's acquisition.

The firm secured $6 million in a seed funding round on November 18, 2020. This investment was led by YL Ventures and included participation from notable angel investors and StoneMill Ventures. This financial backing aimed to accelerate the development of its platform, which provides building blocks for developers to generate and manage authorization controls.

The core of Build.security's business was a platform designed to simplify and accelerate the implementation of authorization policies, such as Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC). It leveraged the open-source standard, Open Policy Agent (OPA), a general-purpose policy engine that decouples policy decision-making from application logic. This allows organizations to enforce fine-grained access controls and manage security policies as code, separate from the application itself. The platform targeted development teams, enabling them to integrate enterprise-grade security and meet compliance requirements quickly. By using API-based data sources, the technology helped build and enforce access controls across a company's application portfolio.

In a significant milestone, Build.security was acquired by Elastic (NYSE: ESTC), the company behind Elasticsearch. The acquisition agreement was announced in August 2021 and completed on September 2, 2021, for an undisclosed amount. This strategic move was part of Elastic's expansion into cloud-native security, intending to integrate Build.security's policy enforcement capabilities into the Elastic Security platform. The integration aimed to extend Elastic's Limitless XDR (Extended Detection and Response) to enforce security actions in cloud environments, including for containers orchestrated by Kubernetes. Following the acquisition, the Build.security team formed the foundation of a new Elastic R&D site in Tel Aviv, with Amit Kanfer leading the new center.

Keywords: authorization policy management, access control, Open Policy Agent, OPA, cloud-native security, RBAC, ABAC, Elastic, application security, developer security, policy as code, cybersecurity, fine-grained access controls, compliance management, API security, Kubernetes security, decouple policy, YL Ventures, Amit Kanfer, Dekel Braunstein