CybersecurityMember Spotlight: Patchman B.V.
About Patchman B.V.
Patchman is a security solution for web hosting providers that prevents website hacks. Rather than dealing with the aftermath of a hack or attempting to block secondary attack traffic like other products, Patchman is unique in dealing with the issue by tackling the root cause: automated patching of security vulnerabilities, regardless of software age or configuration. The malware scanning component of our software also deals with any collateral from attacks using other vectors than website weaknesses.
Our product was originally developed as an in-house tool at a Dutch web hosting provider in 2011 to prevent customers from having to deal with their websites being hacked, and to better counter system outages resulting from those hacks. The good results and positive feedback led to the product being spun off into a separate company under the name Patchman in 2014, to make it available to the general public. Our customer base consists of webhosting companies from all over the world, ranging from startups to market leaders.
Website hacks and resulting abuse are a problem for both the providers and their customers, that everyone in the industry wants to prevent having to deal with. Our vision is that this only works by commoditizing security for the masses, making it ubiquitous rather than considering it a premium add-on. This is why we’ve developed our product to be easily deployed across an entire web hosting platform. Another core philosophy is that web hosting customers shouldn’t be considered offenders when their website is exploited, but rather as victims (just as much as the provider). We strongly believe that involving the customer in deploying security, making it easily accessible but also providing information and education about the steps involved, are essential to helping the customer and creating more security awareness.
Our ultimate goal is to secure every website on the planet, stopping attacks and blocking malware worldwide to fight malicious activity on a global scale. In our mind, deploying security solutions such as ours don’t just benefit each provider by themselves but also the Internet (and Internet industries) as a whole.
Joining The i2Coalition
We first encountered the i2Coalition when we started attending industry events in 2014. What became clear pretty quickly was the overlap in our philosophies that we can help the industry as a whole without having to focus on profit or (purely) competing with other companies; both Patchman and the i2Coalition believe that the Internet is an industry in which commercial activities and shared ideology are equally important for continued development. By joining, we hope to contribute to the development and security of our market on a new level.
Our primary focus is obviously on cybersecurity, but we always emphasize that within that field we are very much looking at preventative action rather than aftercare. We see that many tools and products currently available are reactive in nature, cleaning up after the damage has already been done. To us, it’s important to stay ahead of the attackers instead of retracing their steps, so we can truly decrease the impact of attacks. This mindset also forces us to research security issues pro-actively rather than to wait for them to be exploited, which helps expand our knowledge.
In the upcoming year we plan to branch out, both by developing new products and by reaching out to the communities we can contribute to. This includes setting up a security lab that openly assists common open-source products used in web hosting, finding a way to make our security findings available to other cybersecurity vendors in the industry to strengthen all products involved, and share our knowledge and experience in cybersecurity in both commercial and political circles. Hence, joining the i2Coalition is a logical step for us to help us achieve these goals.