MixMode lands $45M for self-learning security platform that combats zero days

Did you miss a session at the Data Summit? MixMode, which today announced a $45 million series B funding round, has a massive opportunity ahead to deploy its self-learning, "third-wave" AI system to proactively secure customers against previously unknown cyberattacks, CEO John Keister told VentureBeat. A significant portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year on cybersecurity is focused on signature-based solutions, which only protect against the 20% of successful attacks that had previously been seen, Keister said. But the other 80% of cyberattacks (according to figures from the Ponemon Institute) are novel attacks -- and identification of those requires advanced AI capabilities, he said. "The existing systems simply don't address that 80%," Keister said.