Close
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Cybersecurity
    • Cybersecurity

    Pindrop Raises $75M to Advance Tech to Fight Phone Fraud

    By
    Sean Michael Kerner
    -
    January 28, 2016
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin
      phone fraud

      Phone fraud prevention vendor Pindrop Security has raised a new Series C $75 million round of funding, bringing total funding to date for the company to $122 million. The new round of funding will be used to help grow the company faster and to build new technologies to limit the risks of phone fraud and robocalls.

      The new Series C round, which is being led by Google Capital and includes the participation of GV, Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Citi Ventures and Felicis, follows up on Pindrop’s $35 million Series B that was announced in February 2015. Since then, the company has improved its phone Fraud Detection System (FDS), including a major update in July 2015.

      Vijay Balasubramaniyan, co-founder, CEO and CTO of Pindrop Security, noted that his company had not yet burned through all of the money it raised in prior rounds.

      “So we’re walking into 2016 with a $100 million war chest to go take on the challenge of phone fraud,” Balasubramaniyan told eWEEK.

      With the funding in place, Balasubramaniyan is now set to expand his company’s offerings into new areas. To date, Pindrop’s core technology has been phone fingerprinting, which helps to identify devices by their acoustic signature, among other characteristics.

      “The original focus for the technology was to look for the bad guys and identify anomalies,” he said.

      Now Pindrop is looking to expand that technology by combining phone fingerprinting with voice biometrics to power an authentication capability. The promise of the authentication technology is that when a call comes in, a call center could identify that it is in fact the right user, identified by voice, device and behavior.

      When it comes to the state of authentication today, many facets of technology rely on passwords, which in Balasubramaniyan’s view is the weakest form of security. The approach he’s trying to build with Pindrop will have multiple levels of inspection to provide a secure form of authentication for voice calls.

      “Voice captures both content and intent,” Balasubramaniyan said. “We want to be able to authenticate the voice channel by being able to identify the right person using the right device using the right behavior.”

      In the Web browser, there is the padlock icon that serves to help users identify whether a site has been secured with Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS). For phone authentication, Balasubramaniyan said that a similar type of concept will be in place with Pindrop’s technology, with a dashboard screen for call center users that will quickly provide a visual cue about the authenticity of a user.

      Beyond just phone authentication, Pindrop has been working to help solve the challenge of automated spam phone calls, often referred to as robocalls. The U.S Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been leading a charge to fight back against robocalls. Among the FTC’s efforts was an event at the DefCon security conference in 2015 to help build technology to prevent robocalls, which is an effort that Pindrop is actively engaged in.

      “We managed the world’s largest phone spam honeypot,” Balasubramaniyan said.

      When a consumer complains that his or her phone number is getting too many robocalls, the telcos will sometimes reclaim the number, he said. Pindrop then acquires those phone numbers and uses them to monitor incoming robocalls.

      “We have approximately a quarter of a million phone numbers, and we’re getting 90,000 fraudulent calls every single day,” Balasubramaniyan said. “That data set helps us to do our job better on the enterprise side, but we want to move the bar and start helping consumers.”

      As part of the Series C funding, Balasubramaniyan expects to be able to build out a consumer-focused product that could help protect individuals against robocalls.

      “This is a very big problem,” he said. “The direct consumer product is probably a couple of years out, but before then we’re working with telcos to help make their networks more intelligent and able to identify phone fraud.”

      Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

      Sean Michael Kerner
      Sean Michael Kerner is an Internet consultant, strategist, and contributor to several leading IT business web sites.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.
      Get the Free Newsletter!
      Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis
      This email address is invalid.

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Latest News

      Zeus Kerravala on Networking: Multicloud, 5G, and...

      James Maguire - December 16, 2022 0
      I spoke with Zeus Kerravala, industry analyst at ZK Research, about the rapid changes in enterprise networking, as tech advances and digital transformation prompt...
      Read more
      Applications

      Datadog President Amit Agarwal on Trends in...

      James Maguire - November 11, 2022 0
      I spoke with Amit Agarwal, President of Datadog, about infrastructure observability, from current trends to key challenges to the future of this rapidly growing...
      Read more
      IT Management

      Intuit’s Nhung Ho on AI for the...

      James Maguire - May 13, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nhung Ho, Vice President of AI at Intuit, about adoption of AI in the small and medium-sized business market, and how...
      Read more
      Applications

      Kyndryl’s Nicolas Sekkaki on Handling AI and...

      James Maguire - November 9, 2022 0
      I spoke with Nicolas Sekkaki, Group Practice Leader for Applications, Data and AI at Kyndryl, about how companies can boost both their AI and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      IGEL CEO Jed Ayres on Edge and...

      James Maguire - June 14, 2022 0
      I spoke with Jed Ayres, CEO of IGEL, about the endpoint sector, and an open source OS for the cloud; we also spoke about...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2022 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×