Virtual Container Security Suite TwistLock Launches with $2.5M Seed Funding

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This article originally appeared at The WHIR

Tel Aviv and San Francisco-based startup Twistlock announced on Thursday that it received $2.5 million in seed funding from YL Ventures. The company will use the funding to launch it’s security suite focused on container security.

Twistlock seeks to solve what it sees as two problems with using container technology: the introduction of new security risks introduced with containers and the ability to monitor and respond to security incidents associated with container applications. The security suite allows developers to implement “quality gates” using a customizable open source security framework prior to applications going into production.

The author of a Garner report in January called “Security properties of Containers managed by Docker” wrote in a blog post: “Security properties of containers are a largely unexplored field and there is a lot of controversial discussion about whether containers do contain or not.” Overall the report found that Docker is fairly secure despite a few shortcomings and a current drought of tools to deal with enterprise needs.

Usually when containers are used it’s impossible for operations teams to see what is happening in the container environment, TwistLock says. What is seen from a monitoring standpoint is virtual machines running unknowing processes. Twistlock security gives teams a way to monitor risks “within the application of the container, enabling enterprises to consistently enforce security policies, monitor and audit activity and identify and isolate threats in a container or cluster of containers,” according to the release.

“Enterprises are in the midst of a data center revolution,” said Ben Bernstein, CEO and co-founder of Twistlock. “Twistlock’s container security suite provides the fuel enterprises need to accelerate their ability to use containers to develop, share and scale the applications that drive their business forward. With our solution, security operation teams finally have the visibility and granular controls they need over their ‘Dockerized’ workloads.”

The company was founded by Ben Bernstein and Dima Stopel. Both have experience in enterprise security expertise having spent time at both the Microsoft R&D center in Israel and serving in the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) intelligence corps.

“YL Ventures is proud to back the first company capable of making containers, and more specifically Docker containers, secure enough for the enterprise” said Yoav Leitersdorf, managing partner for YL Ventures. “Twistlock provides the missing critical security features enterprises require before they can put containers in production environments. With the launch of Twistlock, the container market as a whole can take a huge leap forward.”

YL Ventures invest in cybersecurity, cloud computing, big data and SaaS companies, with a focus on the Israeli market.

Although containers are not new, there has been a resurgence of interest in the industry with the popularity of Docker. Docker just received 15M in series B funding last year and recently purchased Kitematic to make Docker easier to run on Macs.

Startup companies such as Asigra and SocketPlane have been adding support for Docker while larger more established companies such as Microsoft have been doing the same.

This first ran at http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/virtual-container-security-suite-twistlock-launches-with-2-5m-seed-funding