SAN FRANCISCO, May 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Arkose Labs, a provider of online fraud and abuse prevention technology, today announced two new key hires, Phil Steffora as Chief Security Officer (CSO) and Vice President of IT, and Martyn McKean as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). The announcement comes on the heels of the company raising an additional $22 million in Series B funding led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund.
“We are excited to welcome Phil and Martyn on board and we look forward to their contributions to the company,” said Kevin Gosschalk, CEO of Arkose Labs. “Their insight and depth of experience are invaluable, especially during these unprecedented times for the online fraud and abuse space.”
Steffora comes to Arkose Labs with a 30-year distinguished career in technology leadership, most recently serving as Founder and Chairman of VistaBolt, a cloud-based security company. Previously, he spent eight years as CSO and SVP of Global Operations at ThreatMetrix, which was acquired by LexisNexus Risk Solutions in 2018. With a career spanning some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley, Steffora is an accomplished leader in cybersecurity, compliance, and privacy who thrives in environments of extreme technical complexity, of high scale and of high availability across all types of enterprise technology platforms.
“I’m joining Arkose Labs during a time when cyber fraud is at the highest rate seen in years, and protecting companies and ultimately individuals from this type of crime is not only my area of expertise, but it’s also a privilege,” said Steffora.
McKean joins Arkose Labs from Temando, where he served as Managing Director and CTO, overseeing the development of product strategies. Prior to Temando, he was CTO for KoBold, playing a key role in research and development. During his time as CTO at Acumen, McKean was responsible for establishing the company’s technical vision and leading all aspects of technology development. For more than a decade, McKean served in various leadership positions including CEO at Intermine, which he co-founded.
“Arkose Labs is at the forefront of cybersecurity technology. Their innovative approach to stopping fraudsters is one that I was impressed with from afar, and I’m thrilled to join the team that’s changing the landscape of fraud prevention,” said McKean.
It’s been a busy few weeks for Arkose Labs. In addition to significant new hires, the company was recognized as a “Leader in Innovation” among fraud and abuse vendors in the KuppingerCole 2020 Leadership Compass report, which analyzes the entire market sector and provides keen insights into the fraud landscape. Last week, the company also issued its Q2 Fraud and Abuse Report, providing invaluable data during the COVID-19 era by tracking fraud and risk trends. The report revealed the highest attack rate ever seen, finding that 26.5% of all transactions were fraud and abuse attempts, which is a 20% increase over the previous quarter.
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