Fastly Research and Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reported that 75% of organizations spend as much time (and sometimes more time) on false positives than on actual attacks. These false alerts cause the same amount of downtime as real attacks. Tooling fatigue and false positives hinder the ability to maintain adequate security across new and existing application architectures.

Two former Airbnb security engineers, Elizabeth Nammour and Julie Trias, wrestled with the problem of constant manual assessments and reviews that become obsolete as soon as they're completed. They recognized the need to replace point-in-time spreadsheets and ad hoc scripts with automation that provides a real-time and always up-to-date data security and privacy posture.

As a result, the two founded Teleskope, a cybersecurity startup. Teleskope recently launched a data protection platform that automates data security, privacy and compliance at scale, helping organizations comply with regulations like GDPR and CCPA, and reduce the manual and operational burden on security, data and engineering teams. The company raised $2.2 million in pre-seed funding, led by Lerer Hippeau.

With that said, what exactly does Teleskope do?

In contrast to conventional data security posture management (DSPM) methods that often lead to alert exhaustion due to wasted time on false positives, Teleskope utilizes AI (specifically LLMs) to offer precise and actionable insights. The company's data protection software seamlessly integrates into existing workflows and developer pipelines, granting engineers the power to automate security from the origin.

Teleskope's advanced contextual analysis surpasses traditional data classification by discerning the actual categorization of data, such as whether an address is considered personally identifiable information when associated with a customer's home address, or if the address is linked to a public landmark or business address without any PII implications. Utilizing LLMs that are continuously fine-tuned and optimized for speed and cost, Teleskope accurately identifies the data subject associated with the information, differentiating between customers, employees and specific customer types, like doctors and patients.

Within minutes, Teleskope can monitor cloud data stores and third-party vendors, compiling a comprehensive inventory of assets, including concealed ones, while identifying their security and compliance risks. Its advanced classification engine, powered by a LLM and rules engine, adapts to each unique data store, identifying sensitive data and providing relevant context about the data subjects. The Teleskope AI model is continuously trained to learn from each individual customer implementation, further enhancing its accuracy.

"With the increasing use of generative AI causing even more data leaks, privacy is becoming even more of a concern,” said Elizabeth Nammour, co-founder and CEO of Teleskope. “Teleskope helps customers automate security and privacy saving them valuable time, while simultaneously reducing risk. From detection to remediation, Teleskope can be easily integrated in developer pipelines to help prevent and resolve data security vulnerabilities.”

By reducing false positives and providing comprehensive data context, Teleskope empowers organizations to concentrate on authentic vulnerabilities, streamlining security and privacy operations while substantially mitigating risks. This holds particular significance as data breaches and privacy incidents surge, accompanied by increased fines for mishandling data.