A day after HackerOne Inc. secured $25 million in  funding to help organizations crowdsource data about vulnerabilities in their services, another startup called BitSight Technologies Inc. is bringing threat intelligence back into the limelight with an eight-digit investment round of its own aimed at accomplishing the exact opposite goal. Its namesake service promises to help customers take their security into their own hands.

That’s achieved with a rating system that collects information about malware and related hacker activity from various sources, most notably the cloud-based threat tracker that BitSight obtained through its acquisition of AnubisNetworks last year, to search for signs of breaches. That insight is then put in the context of the systems and services used in an organization’s environment.

The reasoning is that hacking always leaves a trace somewhere and in some form. That can include obvious cues like, say, records from a popular customer relationship management service suddenly showing up on a black market site as well subtler hints such as a high number of companies in a particular segment coming under attack at the same time.

BitSight uses the information obtained on each surveyed system in an organization’s environment to generate a security score that encompasses not only vulnerability to external threats but also how internal operations shape up against that of other customers in the same sector. That visibility extends down to specific details such as how long it takes the network protection team to address anomalous traffic compared to the industry average.

The insights from the platform are displayed in a visual console that not only allows practitioners to identify areas for improvement more easily but also communicate the findings without having to do all the explaining on their own. BitSight sees that coming equally useful for interacting with decision-makers within the organization and outside parties like insurers and regulators that need to understand its security posture just as thoroughly.

The new $23 million in funding from Comcast Venture and existing backers Menlo Ventures, Globespan Venture Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Flybridge Capital Partners and board head Shaun McConnon will help BitSight expand on that functionality. BitSight hinted that the new capital, which brings its total raised to nearly $50 million, will also pay for more acquisitions along the lines of the Anubius deal to provide additional data for its service.

Photo via Photo via Charis Tsevis