Founded in the back of a Brooklyn sci-fi bookstore in 2012, White Ops began as a passion project for Tamer Hassan and Michael Tiffany who wanted to tackle a problem that just won’t go away– fraud. Cognizant of the fact that many companies did not realize how much of a problem this was or even how it worked, Tamer and Michael set out to not only create a solution but educate executives, advertisers, publishers, and others on how to fight bot fraud.
Today, the ad verification, bot detection and cybersecurity firm is doing just that. “White Ops mission is, and always has been, to disrupt the economics of cybercrime,” a spokesperson told The Software Report.
The two have come together and developed what is now the White Ops Bot Mitigation Platform, which has the ability to discern whether clicks and traffic are coming from a human or a sophisticated bot.
Some companies may think CAPTCHAS are an all-encompassing security measure against bots, but White Ops is ready to change their minds. Bots used to be easier to spot, making them seem like a simple problem but today 75% of bots reside on residential computers mimicking human behaviors. This renders traditional defenses ineffective.
“Sophisticated bots look and act like humans when they visit websites, click on ads, fill out forms, take over accounts, and commit payment fraud,” White Ops explained. These “bots can easily jump through CAPTCHAs and bypass typical bot mitigation solutions. They are able to look like real humans by working in the background of their devices or using their credentials to gain access to sensitive information. We are able to detect and protect against the most human-like traffic.”
The company's unique approach to bot mitigation led to a collaboration with the FBI, Google, Facebook, and others in the takedown of one of the largest botnets, 3ve. In addition to work like this, White Ops helps protect enterprises worldwide by verifying the humanity of more than a trillion online interactions every week, which they soon hope to achieve per day.
Not one to get complacent, the company has continued to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of cybersecurity and online fraud over the last seven years. They like to get their hands dirty, too. The company's Threat Intelligence team actively trawls through the darkest corners of the internet looking for illegal schemes and potential attackers. Prevention is key to White Ops’ mission.
Explicitly however, the cyber security firm has six core values: “be a hacker, create tau, move fast, practice humility, own it, and be good.” Though White Ops aren’t your average hackers. “White hat hackers” are the good guys, figuring out creative solutions and code to stop threats in their tracks. “Even if you don’t know how to code; you’re a hacker if you see a problem and figure out a creative solution for it.”.
The company prides itself on a robust work environment, one that is happy, dedicated and most of all supportive. At the crux of this is something the ancient Greeks used to call “ataraxy,” which refers to a state of freedom from emotional disturbance and anxiety.
Being on the front lines of a cybersecurity firm seems anything but tranquil, but White Ops have no plans to slow down. Instead it hopes to diversify its portfolio by adding Application Integrity, with which the company sets to fight against account takeover attacks, automated account creation, and web scraping. The technology works across many industries and use cases from ticketing sites to streaming platforms.
“As we ramp up to help more brands, enterprises and consumers, we believe that through collective protection, we can win the war against sophisticated bot attacks, ensuring our customers and partners are engaging with humans and making the internet a safer place for generations to come.”
