Red Herring Magazine - May 28, 2006
Melding Search and Security
Rating search results for safety could be the next battle on the security horizon.
A few weeks ago, the otherwise-conservative security firm McAfee shocked many by paying $70 million for a startup, SiteAdvisor, that was less than a year old, had barely 15 employees, and a product that had been in the market for only about four months.
What made SiteAdvisor so valuable was its idea: the company scanned the links thrown up by search engines like Google and Yahoo, checked them for malware, and marked out the ones that could be dangerous. SiteAdvisor then displayed the safety ratings right next to each search result in real time (see McAfee Buys SiteAdvisor).
SiteAdvisor's idea isn't unique. The company already has competitors. On Monday, U.K.-based security firm ScanSafe, released a similar product called Scandoo. When the search page loads, Scandoo looks through all the results and offers a threat rating as well as a definition of the link.
"We sit between the search engine and the user and scan results real time to tell you if it is safe and if it is a web site that you would like to visit based on your preferences," said Dan Nadir, vice president, product strategy at ScanSafe.
Formed in 1999, the 75-employee company has raised about $10 million in one round of funding from Benchmark Capital.
The Next Big Thing?
ScanSafe is betting on the right idea, said security experts. Safe search is likely to become the next big thing by straddling the hot markets of search and security. Right now, search engines offer users results to their queries but do not help them make a decision about which web sites are safe and which are the ones they should avoid.
"Users want the ability to know more about the link before they click on the link," said Mr. Nadir. "Right now, there's a feeling of rolling the dice every time you click on a link. We want to eliminate that."
ScanSafe started developing the idea around Christmas last year, but just released its service publicly this week. ScanSafe is using its existing technology called Outbreak Intelligence to do real-time scanning of web links.
Scandoo currently puts URLs in 12 categories including ordinary ones like finance, health, and education, and some unusual sections like hate/discrimination, weapons, and illegal activities. To ensure URLs are safe, Scandoo scans active content on a web page and makes a judgment using heuristics on whether the code on the page is likely to be adware, spyware, or a virus.
"We also have the ability to tell if you if it's a web site you don't want to see, like a pornography site, if it is set in your preferences," said Mr. Nadir. Scandoo has about 30,000 users now and has been adding about 25 percent each day since its launch, he said Friday.
Beating the Search Engines
Safe Search may be the next big thing on the horizon but it is still unclear who will dominate this market. To some experts the safe search concept seems more in the league of search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN, which is why someone like Alex Eckelberry, chief executive of antivirus and antispam company Sunbelt Software, was surprised to hear about McAfee's acquisition of SiteAdvisor.
"I am surprised that McAfee got SiteAdvisor, and not Google," he said. "I genuinely wonder why the search engines haven't gotten involved in this yet."
One reason, felt Mr. Eckelberry, could be that security is a huge responsibility and search engines may not be ready to take it on.
"The question is, does someone like Google want the responsibility that comes with rating sites and ensuring that what they say is safe, is really safe," he said. "There's a question of liability, too, here if they fail."
Still it won't be long before the companies decide to partner with security companies rating web sites, or develop their own in-house solutions, said experts.
Search engines will not be the only ones interested in the safe search idea. Internet service providers also would want to buy in, said Pete Lindstrom, research director with consulting firm SpireSecurity.
"It's all service-oriented so it's not clear to me why the ISPs have not already gotten more involved in the web-surfing hygiene part of the business," said Mr. Lindstrom.
Increased Competition
With safe search poised to emerge as the idea that will bring the big markets of security and search together, smaller startups like ScanSafe will soon have to face increased competition from many existing security companies like SurfControl and WebSense, said experts.
SurfControl, a Scotts Valley, California-based enterprise threat protection company, for instance, already has a database of millions of URLs that it has rated and categorized for security threats.
SurfControl's competitor, the San-Diego, California-based WebSense could be another player in the market. These companies already filter web sites for businesses and have the technology to do it, said experts.
Still, it wouldn't be as easy as flipping a switch to turn on the safe search controls. "Many of these firms already have classified millions of web sites," said Mr. Eckelberry. "There will be more work involved in creating a safe search solution, but it is doable."
Clearly McAfee acquisition's of SiteAdvisor and the valuation for the startup has turned the spotlight on the segment.
"Seventy-million is a lot of money for something that was [available] for a few months," said Mr. Nadir. "But it gives us a lot of confidence to know that more people believe in the idea that consumers want to make sure that their search is safe."