UpGuard

UpGuard Inc. is an information security company and it is presently based in Sydney, Australia. [1]UpGuard is a cybersecurity ratings platform that helps organizations prevent data breaches caused by third-party vendors.[2]The company’s research has been published in several high-profile data breaches and data leaks, including the 2018 Cambridge Analytica data scandal,[3][4] Facebook,[5] the Republican National Committee,[6] Tesla,[7] and Microsoft PowerApps[8] data breaches. In 2021, the company raised $19 million in a Series B-1 funding round, bringing the total funding to $45 million ($59 million AUD).[9]

UpGuard
FormerlyScriptRock
TypePrivate
IndustryInformation Security
FounderAlan Sharp-Paul, Leo Venegas, Mike Baukes
Headquarters
Sydney
,
Australia
Websitewww.upguard.com

History

UpGuard, formerly ScriptRock, is an American information security company.[10] While working at investment firm Colonial First State, company founders Leo Venegas, Alan Sharp-Paul, and Mike Baukes met on-the-job in Sydney, Australia. Sharp-Paul was a web developer and Baukes was a systems administrator.[11][12] After spending years in financial services in Australia and the UK, the trio developed a system for corporations to understand business software portfolios and the consequent risk of breaches and outages due to poor configuration management.[13] The first release of the system was initially named guardrail and allowed for the automation of typical cybersecurity DevOps practices, focusing on deep analysis into all relevant servers and software applications settings.[14]

In 2016, the company raised $17m in a series B funding round co-led by Pellion that included August Capital, Square Peg Capital and Insurance Australia Group.[15][16] In early 2017, Baukes and Sharp-Paul opened an UpGuard office in Sydney, Australia, bringing the company back to the region "where it all began."[17] In 2018, the company released a new product called UpGuard Cyber Risk with a focus on helping organizations improve their cyber risk and security posture.

In December 2020, the company announced the sale of a DevOps product called Core. [18]

Financial History

In 2016, the company raised $17m in a series B funding round co-led by Pellion that included August Capital, Square Peg Capital and Insurance Australia Group.[19] In 2021, the company raised $19 million in a Series B-1 funding round, bringing the total funding to $45 million ($59 million AUD).[20]

Cybersecurity Research

UpGuard researchers have published cybersecurity research, including:

  • In June 2017, UpGuard announced that it had found an unsecured server containing data from Deep Root Analytics, which contained information on almost 200 million American voters.[21] [22]
  • In March 2018, UpGuard researchers announced that they had found an unsecured server containing data from Aggregate IQ, the firm responsible for developing the tools used by Cambridge Analytica. [23]
  • In July 2018, UpGuard researchers announced that sensitive documents for over a hundred manufacturing companies were exposed on a publicly accessible server belonging to Level One Robotics. Among the companies with data exposed in the incident are divisions of VW, Chrysler, Ford, GM, Tesla and ThyssenKrupp.[24]
  • In June 2020, UpGuard researchers reported that a cloud storage repository containing personally identifiable information (PII) and device data tied to millions of phone app users, collected by the multi-device advertising app “TVSmiles”, has been secured.[25]
  • In August 2021, UpGuard researchers announced that they discovered multiple data leaks resulting from Microsoft Power Apps portals configured to allow public access to 38 million records. The types of data varied between portals, including personal information used for COVID-19 contact tracing, COVID-19 vaccination appointments, social security numbers for job applicants, employee IDs, and millions of names and email addresses.[26]
  • In November 2021, UpGuard researchers reported that a public Google Cloud Storage bucket containing approximately 1.5 terabytes of data used to administer funding programs for college students has been secured.[27]

References
  1. "IAG, Square Peg pump $25m into cyber risk company UpGuard". Australian Financial Review. 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  2. "IAG, Square Peg pump $25m into cyber risk company UpGuard". Australian Financial Review. 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  3. Condon, Stephanie. "Data breach exposes Cambridge Analytica's data mining tools". ZDNet. Retrieved 2021-07-07.
  4. "The six weeks that brought Cambridge Analytica down". the Guardian. 2018-05-03. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  5. "Hundreds of millions of Facebook user records were exposed on Amazon cloud server". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  6. Larson, Selena (2017-06-19). "Data of almost 200 million voters leaked online by GOP analytics firm". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  7. Cowley, Stacy (2018-07-20). "'Big Red Flag': Automakers' Trade Secrets Exposed in Data Leak". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  8. Business, Brian Fung, CNN. "Data leak exposes tens of millions of private records from corporations and government agencies". CNN. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  9. "IAG, Square Peg pump $25m into cyber risk company UpGuard". Australian Financial Review. 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-07-08.
  10. "Security specialist UpGuard returns to Australia". Computerworld. Retrieved 2018-10-22.
  11. Moses, Asher (2012-07-24). "Facebook's first investor bets big on Aussie 'corporate refugees'". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  12. "UpGuard Out To Disrupt $7.5 Billion Global Cybersecurity Insurance Market". Forbes. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  13. "UpGuard Out To Disrupt $7.5 Billion Global Cybersecurity Insurance Market". Forbes. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  14. "UpGuard Out To Disrupt $7.5 Billion Global Cybersecurity Insurance Market". Forbes. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
  15. "Security specialist UpGuard returns to Australia". Computerworld. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
  16. "Freshly Funded Startup Grades Fortune 500 on Cyber Risk 'Credit Scores'". Fortune. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  17. "UpGuard brings cyber resilience expertise back to APAC 'where it all began'". SecurityBrief Australia. Retrieved 12 June 2017.
  18. "Cloudhouse acquires UpGuard Core to provide instant visibility of an entire IT infrastructure". Help Net Security. 2020-12-17. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  19. "Freshly Funded Startup Grades Fortune 500 on Cyber Risk 'Credit Scores'". Fortune. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  20. "IAG, Square Peg pump $25m into cyber risk company UpGuard". Australian Financial Review. 2021-06-07. Retrieved 2021-07-08.
  21. "A Republican contractor's database of nearly every voter was left exposed on the Internet for 12 days, researcher says". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  22. Conger, Dell Cameron and Kate. "GOP Data Firm Accidentally Leaks Personal Details of Nearly 200 Million American Voters". Gizmodo. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  23. Condon, Stephanie. "Data breach exposes Cambridge Analytica's data mining tools". ZDNet. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  24. Cowley, Stacy (2018-07-20). "'Big Red Flag': Automakers' Trade Secrets Exposed in Data Leak". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  25. "Researchers find exposed data on millions of users of quiz app, TVSmiles". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  26. Vincent, James (2021-08-24). "Check your permissions: default settings in Microsoft tool exposes 38 million user records online". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  27. "US education software company exposed personal data of 1.2M students". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2021-12-09.
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