CyKick Labs

Founded in 2015 and based in Tel Aviv, Israel, CyKick Labs emerged as a specialized cybersecurity firm focused on defending organizations from sophisticated web application attacks. The company was established by Raviv Raz, who served as the Chief Technology Officer, and David Sokolic, the Chief Executive Officer. CyKick Labs operated in the B2B market, providing security solutions for large enterprises across various sectors, including financial institutions, healthcare providers, defense, and online retailers. The intellectual property and marks of the company were acquired by Alarum Technologies (formerly Safe-T) in July 2018.

The firm's business model centered on its flagship product, Telepath, a technology platform designed to prevent botnet-based web scraping and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. Telepath utilized web behavioral analysis, powered by machine learning algorithms and big data analytics, to identify and mitigate malicious activities in real-time. This approach allowed it to detect threats beyond the scope of traditional rules-based systems by creating a baseline of normal user behavior and flagging anomalies. The system was engineered to stop a wide array of threats, including automated attacks, API and business logic abuse, account takeovers, and online fraud. By analyzing user behavior at a deep level, Telepath provided security teams with situational awareness and forensic capabilities to investigate threats.

A key feature of Telepath was its ability to operate at what the company described as "layer 8," focusing on the application's logic to understand transactions and user actions. This enabled the platform to distinguish between legitimate users and malicious actors, whether human or bot. The system integrated a malicious IP reputation knowledge base and risk-scoring for each session, allowing for the automatic blocking of suspicious activities based on predefined policies. This not only enhanced security but also offered a return on investment by significantly reducing resource consumption from bad bot traffic. CyKick Labs came out of stealth mode in February 2017 and was VC-backed, with Janvest Capital Partners listed as an institutional investor.

Keywords: cybersecurity, web application security, behavioral analytics, machine learning, bot detection, DDoS prevention, fraud detection, big data analytics, threat intelligence, network security, API security, account takeover protection, risk management, real-time threat mitigation, information security, enterprise security, Tel Aviv, Raviv Raz, David Sokolic, Alarum Technologies