Upwind’s first acquisition is now complete. Nyx, which specializes in real-time threat detection within applications, is being added to the company. The acquisition price remains undisclosed.
We wrote extensively about Upwind earlier this month. The company aims to take cloud security a step further than Cloud Detection & Response already did. Its proprietary Cloud Application Detection & Response (CADR) framework was recently expanded to include real-time protection of APIs. The latter has been a concern for IT security for years. But security companies are still working hard to keep the applications themselves secure. The problem is usually that applications have free rein to write to memory, with all the consequences that entails if a malicious party can manipulate this.
Nyx’s technology addresses this problem by monitoring which functions are actually being executed in memory. This should enable the detection of exploited vulnerabilities and anomalous behavior as it happens (and therefore at the moment when it can still be mitigated).
Focus on the application layer
By integrating Nyx’s technology, Upwind expects to expand its platform to the application execution layer. This should lead to ‘Application Detection & Response’ (ADR), which provides insight into activities at the function level during runtime. It should also enable deeper detection of anomalies. Upwind claims that this is achieved without adding extra complexity, as it uses the same runtime sensor that is already used for infrastructure insights.
Nyx was founded last year (in 2024) by Gili Yankovich and Alon Saban, both with backgrounds in cybersecurity. The company brings expertise in embedded systems, application layer analysis, and low-level threat detection. According to Upwind, Nyx’s vision of runtime defense aligns with its own platform.
The combination of Upwind and Nyx should lead to a more complete understanding of the interaction between cloud infrastructure and the applications that run on it. Upwind says this is essential for a true cloud security platform.
Read more: Upwind links API security to cloud security