WholeSecurity

About WholeSecurity

WholeSecurity, founded in 1999, operated in the cybersecurity sector, positioning itself as a provider of behavior-based security and anti-phishing technology. The firm was established in Austin, Texas, and founded by Tony Alagna, who also served as the Chief Technology Officer. Alagna brought over two decades of experience in the cyber risk market to the company. The President and CEO of the company was J. Peter Selda.

The company's core offering centered on analyzing the characteristics and actions of malicious code, such as viruses and worms, to provide real-time protection without relying on traditional signature-based detection. This behavior-based approach was designed to identify and neutralize previously unknown threats, or "zero-day attacks," by focusing on what a program was attempting to do rather than matching it against a database of known malware. Its product, Confidence Online, analyzed the behavior of threats against hundreds of detection modules to determine if processes or websites were malicious. This technology was applicable across various scenarios, from browser-based phishing detection to on-demand malicious code scanning. The business model targeted both corporate managed PCs and consumer e-commerce sessions, aiming to protect against phishing scams and secure remote and unmanaged computers.

WholeSecurity secured a total of $20 million in funding over two rounds. The initial Series A round occurred on March 24, 2003, followed by a Series B round on April 26, 2004, which raised $10 million. Key investors included Venrock, New Enterprise Associates, and Trellis Partners. The company's trajectory culminated in its acquisition by Symantec in October 2005. The acquisition was a strategic move for Symantec to integrate WholeSecurity's behavior-based technology into its own security product suites, thereby enhancing its capabilities against rapidly evolving online threats like phishing.