Security analytics software startup ProtectWise Inc. today said it has closed on a Series B funding round that raised $25 million.

The round, which brings its total funding to $67 million, was led by Arsenal Venture Partners, Top Tier Capital Partners, Tola Capital and other strategic investors. ClearSky Managing Director Jay Leek joins the board.

ProtectWise was founded in 2013, advocating an alternative approach to cyber security. Rather than trying to prevent security breaches, ProtectWise acknowledges that it’s almost impossible to prevent attackers from finding a way in, so instead it focuses on identifying breaches as early as possible in order to try to minimize the damage.

Damage limitation generally isn’t something that legacy information technology security systems have been very good at, Scott Chasin, co-founder and chief executive of ProtectWise, said in an interview with SiliconANGLE. Traditional IT security firms create firewalls to prevent breaches and antivirus software that protects against viruses and malware, but they offer little in terms of being able to spot breaches that go under the radar.

“With traditional security alone, the average breach detection window is more than 200 days,” Chasin said. “In today’s environment, enterprises can’t afford this lack of visibility, which gives them very myopic detection windows.”

ProtectWise CEO Scott Chasin

ProtectWise’s offering, called the ProtectWise Grid, attempts to mitigate security breaches by analyzing network data for signs that an attack is underway. It offers tools that can detect a plethora of anomalies and “events” that might indicate a breach, almost as soon as it happens. The platform also allows companies to analyze the damage caused by such incidents.

“By creating a memory of your network we enable real-time security analytics and automated retrospection [which enables you] to go back in time to perform a forensic analysis of how the breach happened and its impact on your business,” Chasin said.

Asked about the possibility that attackers could try to evade detection by introducing “noise” into the network to make any anomalies look normal, Chasin said it’s important for enterprises to engage in defense, in order to access the broadest variety of threat detections possible.

“By using and correlating a variety of techniques across time, with a full forensic recording of network traffic, we can greatly raise the barrier for attackers looking to evade detection,” Chasin said. “The very high retention rate among our customers is a testament to our efficacy.”

Looking ahead, ProtectWise said it’s planning to use its new funds to invest in sales and marketing staff, with a view to extending its offering into the cloud and industrial control services market.

“We’ve received very strong validation of the market’s reception to our platform; our customer base has more than doubled in one year,” Chasin said.

Images courtesy of ProtectWise