By Srinath Srinivasan
Delhi-based Astra Security is one of the couple of Indian startups to specialise in cybersecurity and provide prepared-to-use options. Its options variety from firewall to fixing hacks to supplying particular customised options based on the client’s specifications. The firm, which is a group of about 20 individuals, runs a money positive enterprise with a runway of 9-10 months of money reserve to tackle hard conditions like the current pandemic. This has been achievable simply because of two essential aspects.
“One important reason to have a strong business is our customers usually pay us for a whole year and so we have a strong base,” says Shikhil Sharma, co-founder and CEO, Astra Security. “The other one is, co-founder Ananda Krishna and I like to automate a lot of processes internally which saves time and cost.”
Interestingly, the initial ever lead and paying buyer for the enterprise came in as a outcome of automation. “We wrote a twitter bot to search tweets globally for the words ‘hacked’ and ‘website’. We would then jump into the conversations and offer them to clean up the hack. This way one such conversation converted into a paying customer,” shares Sharma.
Being a cloud-initial enterprise, the concept of automation reflects in the goods and services the enterprise provides. For instance, it claims to clean up hacks and safe web-sites in a matter of 1-4 hours with one hundred% results price and uncomplicated integration.
According to Sharma, in today’s cyberspace, this is not just a differentiator for its enterprise but also an important for on line companies. “Typically, online businesses today have 4-5 vendors. Their websites are not solely built and maintained by one party. Beyond the security offered by the cloud platforms, it becomes important for these businesses to have checks and security at every stage across every vendor. This is where we help them,” explains Sharma. Currently, with more and more on line companies coming up, there is a massive scope for cybersecurity corporations to capture the mid and compact segments with reasonably priced options.
During the starting of the Covid-19 pandemic, some of these companies closed. “At that stage we saw a sudden dip in our business as well. However, when things stabilised, the business bounced back and multiplied. The demand for security also went up,” says Sharma. As observed by the startup, hackers employed the panic triggered by Covid-19 to come up with new strategies of attacks which continue to date, touching upon sensitive troubles like vaccine campaigns and remote work. Sharma believes with the enable of exponential technologies like AI and ML, the new strategies can be spotted swiftly and stopped ahead of it is as well late.