Enough of hacks: this Indian startup makes apps like Ola, Zomato, Slack less vulnerable

Cisco CEO John Chambers says that there are two types of companies: those who have been hacked and those who don’t yet know they have been hacked. The industry’s stance on security tends to be reactive, only paying attention when a data theft occurs or a vulnerability is disclosed by a third-party hacker. Public embarrassments lead to public backlash, massive and distracting cleanup jobs, a loss of consumer confidence in mobile apps, and possibly even a shut down or drop in stock price.

Case in point: Code Spaces, a SaaS provider which went out of business after an AWS security breach, underscoring the need for proper cloud storage backup. Security issues were also seen at some leading startups including Slack, Zomato, Ola, and Gaana. The problem, according to Toshendra Sharma, founder of Appvigil, is that mobile app coders tend to be feature-oriented, and inexperienced at secure coding practices making their apps susceptible to hacking.

Computer science grad Sharma launched Appvigil from Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai’s incubator SINE.

Security scan

Toshendra Sharma founder of Wegilant at SINE, IIT Mumbai

“Startups, in particular, take comfort in the belief that they are too inconsequential to attract attention from cyber criminals,” says Sharma. “These companies have become a soft target because they lack time, budget, and expertise to put comprehensive security defense in place.”

Appvigil helps app developers to focus on building awesome features while the security loopholes are taken care of. They offer solutions like app vulnerability scans including dynamic, static, and network analysis, loophole detection, and recommendations to fix them.

The startup claims to run millions of scans in parallel across the most dangerous vulnerabilities. It does not need the app’s source code for integration, which makes scanning more secure for companies who don’t want to share their code outside their infrastructure.

Appvigil offers one free scan, after which the solution is available for a monthly subscription of US$299-999. It claims to have 700 developer sign-ups and three enterprise clients in India, Hong Kong, and the US.

Being less vulnerable