Skip to main content

Sqreen wants to become the IFTTT of web app security



French startup Sqreen recently launched a Security Hub with dozens of plugins to put you in control of the security of your web app. In many ways, it feels like enabling tasks on popular automation service IFTTT.

Sqreen participated in TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield and Y Combinator’s current batch. The vision of the product hasn’t changed. Sqreen lets you protect your web service with little effort from your side.

Big companies have dedicated security teams that protect services, try to run attacks to find weaknesses and more. Smaller companies don’t necessarily have enough time and money to build a dedicated team. But your product is still vulnerable to SQL injections, XSS attacks and brute-force attacks.

Sqreen isn’t a firewall. You just have to install a library package on your server and add a couple of lines at the top your source code to require the Sqreen module in your application.

Once this is done, Sqreen monitors attacks in real time without a big performance hit — the startup says there’s a 4 percent CPU overhead. Sqreen now works for web apps in Node.js, Ruby, PHP, Python or Java.

In addition to protecting you against common attacks, Sqreen makes security recommendations so that you can regularly fix vulnerabilities. And with GDPR coming soon, tech companies have a greater responsibility when it comes to protecting customer data and disclosing hacks.

Customers wanted to know more about what Sqreen was doing. That’s why Sqreen launched a security hub with documented plugins.

“All security vendors are very secretive,” Sqreen co-founder and CEO Pierre Betouin. “Usually, you can’t test the product and you have no information on what they do. We were like this at the beginning of Sqreen. Our positioning was really ‘install our library and we’ll cover a range of security features.’”

“We had a big push back. So we wondered how we could be more transparent, provide something more rational. We explain each plugin completely.”







You can find a plugin to protect you against SQLite injections, vulnerable dependencies, XSS Javascript injections in various frameworks, bot activity, etc.

Sqreen will recommend plugins for your app depending on the technologies and frameworks you’re using. You can then enable or disable each plugin and configure notifications on Slack or PagerDuty for instance.

In the future, you can imagine that third-party companies could contribute to this marketplace and add new plugins. Sqreen is also working on other plugins related to email abuse and payment page protection.

In addition to those new features, Betouin is moving to San Francisco and opening an office there. Companies like Front, Mindbody, BlaBlaCar, Triplebyte, Toptal and Algolia are now using Sqreen.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

SoftBank Lands $236M From Alibaba And Foxconn To Bring Its Pepper Robot To The World

Remember Pepper,  the intelligent robot that SoftBank unveiled last year ? Pepper goes on sale in Japan this coming weekend, but in advance of that launch  SoftBank has revealed  that Alibaba and manufacturer Foxconn have invested $118 million each in its robotics division. That deal will give Alibaba and Foxconn 20 percent shares in SoftBank Robotics Holdings (known as SBRH), with SoftBank retaining a dominant 60 percent stake. “SoftBank, Alibaba and Foxconn will build a structure to bring Pepper and other robotics businesses to global markets, and cooperate with the aim of spreading and developing the robotics industry on a worldwide scale,” SoftBank said in its announcement. SoftBank isn’t short on money, of course — it is building up quite a portfolio of e-commerce investments across Asia — but its two partners bring know-how, strategy and global networks to the table. So, it looks like Pepper has eventual world domination plans. Or, at least, ...

How ad-free subscriptions could solve Facebook

At the core of Facebook’s “well-being” problem is that its business is directly coupled with total time spent on its apps. The more hours you pass on the social network, the more ads you see and click, the more money it earns. That puts its plan to make using Facebook healthier at odds with its finances, restricting how far it’s willing to go to protect us from the harms of over use. The advertising-supported model comes with some big benefits, though. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that “We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.” Ads lets Facebook remain free for those who don’t want to pay, and more importantly, for those around the world who couldn’t afford to. Ads pay for Facebook to keep the lights on, research and develop new technologies, and profit handsomely in a way that attracts top talent and further investment. More affluent users with more buying power in markets like the US, UK, and Canada command higher ad prices, effectively...

Trump cites Facebook exec’s comments downplaying Russian ad influence on election

You’d be forgiven for missing Donald Trump’s multiple retweets of Facebook executive Rob Goldman over the weekend. Perhaps you were spending time with family, watching Black Panther or just attempting to forget politics for a moment by ignoring the manic flurry of social media updates from the leader of the free world. But in amongst a deluge of tweets that blamed Democrats for failing to preserve DACA, called out the FBI over the recent school shooting in Florida on the FBI and affectionately referred to a member of congress as “Liddle’ Adam Schiff, the leakin’ monster of no control,” the President cited Facebook’s VP of Ads as evidence against claims that his campaign colluded with Russia. “The Fake News Media never fails,” Trump tweeted over the weekend. “Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman!” Trump was citing Goldman’s own Twitter dump over the past week, responding to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 13 Russian...

Apple Releases First Battery Case To Eat Third-Party Accessory Makers’ Lunch

In a surprise move, Apple just announced an external battery case for the iPhone 6s. Named the  iPhone 6s Smart Battery Case , the battery extends the battery life of your iPhone 6s by up to 25 hours. The new accessory is available in black and white for $99 starting today. Let’s start with the design. Apple is using silicone as the main material like on its other cases. The company doesn’t disclose the capacity of the battery except that you’re supposed to get 18 to 25 hours of extra battery. Like third-party battery cases, Apple uses a Lightning male port at the bottom to plug your iPhone. You can charge the case using a traditional Lightning cable — most third-party batteries rely on a microUSB cable. Apple’s accessory also works with the iPhone 6 and it looks like there isn’t a 6 Plus and 6s Plus version. The Smart Battery Case features an unfortunate hump at the back. Mophie’s  Juice Pack  design is a bit sleeker compared to Apple’s official accessory. Apple...