The New and Improved Silver Tail Systems

When Mike and I started Silver Tail Systems in 2008 - yes 15 years ago - the cybersecurity industry was in its earliest years.? Everything from ransomware to zero day attacks were new threats that very few folks understood.? And yet, we started Silver Tail to combat an even newer area of the cybersecurity ecosystem: online fraud.??

One of our biggest challenges was educating the market on two things: what we did and why what we did was incredibly important to what our customers needed to maintain healthy online businesses.

In the end, what we built turned out to be extremely important to all types of online businesses - from banks to brokerages to ecommerce companies.? And a new way of looking at protecting websites was born.

Two years ago when I was introduced to Nate and Patrick at Spec I couldn’t help but see the similarities to Silver Tail.? The founders were well versed in the industry (also having worked at eBay, but also with experience at ThreatMetrix and Akamai), the threats they were addressing were similar to the threats Silver Tail was created to find, and their install process was extremely straightforward.

The main similarity I see between Spec and Silver Tail is the extremely fast time-to-value.? Just like with Silver Tail, Spec has been showing attacks on web infrastructure within hours of installation.? This is one of the most powerful aspects of Silver Tail and it has been incredible to watch it play out with the Spec product as well.

Finally, the scalability of Spec is also amazing.? One of the main strengths of Silver Tail was its ability to handle enormous amounts of traffic, especially during peak traffic periods.? Spec is similarly architected to handle huge traffic surges on some of the biggest websites in the world.

As I’ve worked with this company through the past two years it has become clear how they have taken the vision for Silver Tail and expanded on it.? First, their implementation process is so much simpler than the Silver Tail install.? Where Silver Tail required a few changes in the IT infrastructure, Spec’s install is a simple routing of DNS traffic - much more straightforward than needing to sit in the IT center of a customer.

Second, Spec is actually able to take action on bad behavior.? At Silver Tail we always wanted to mitigate bad behavior, but we were never able to make that dream a reality.? Spec’s unique installation allows them to take action on bad actors in real time, all while obfuscating from the criminals why that action was taken.

What has been extremely exciting for me is watching how some of the largest brands on the internet are embracing Spec’s product.? Just as with Silver Tail, the largest online entities know that they are exceedingly vulnerable to being targeted by cyber criminals.? And it is these well-known, cyber-savvy brands that have become Specs customers.? Watching Spec’s product help these high-visibility, high-traffic brands combat some of the most modern online threats has been a real trip down memory lane.? Not only are they following in the Silver Tail footsteps, but they are moving our vision forward - doing more to protect online brands in this age of increased cyber threats.