Shape Security appoints John Stewart to its Board of Directors

– USA, CA – Shape Security, developers of the world’s first botwall — a breakthrough defense against malware, botnets, and automated scripts — today announced that John N. Stewart, Cisco’s chief security officer and a senior vice president, has been appointed to the company’s board of directors, effective immediately. With over 25 years of experience in the security space, Mr. Stewart brings a wealth of knowledge in enterprise security. He joins a board with deep security and networking experience, alongside Ted Schlein, managing partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and founding CEO of Fortify; Gaurav Garg, co-founder of Wing Venture Partners, former partner at Sequoia Capital and founder of Redback Networks; and Ray Rothrock, partner emeritus at Venrock and CEO of RedSeal Networks.

“John has unparalleled vision and experience in current and future security challenges,” said Derek Smith, CEO of Shape Security. “His appointment to the board comes at a time when a well-considered cybersecurity strategy has become vital to every leading company’s success, and he will help us continue our rapid growth.”

“Cybercrime is growing, with commerce manipulation attacks aimed against websites for banks, merchants, and legitimate content providers on the rise,” said Stewart. “By protecting a commerce website at the front, Shape’s technology aims to slow, and ultimately reverse, this trend and materially raise the cost of web hacking. That’s a compelling vision, so now it’s all about execution and Shape is well underway.”

As the Internet of Things has grown, it has become clear that a more automated, scalable approach to security is required. Shape’s patented technology represents a break from traditional approaches to security by using a technique called real-time polymorphism. Malware authors have long used polymorphic (continually changing) code to successfully evade detection by antivirus and other security vendors. Rather than trying to detect polymorphic attacks, Shape makes the web code (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) of applications polymorphic, making them inherently resistant to attacks from malware, botnets, and scripts. By doing this in real-time, Shape turns websites into moving targets, creating a more effective and efficient defense for any and all of an enterprise’s web applications.

“Shape’s technology is essential in securing the Internet of Things. John’s extensive background in security will be invaluable for Shape,” said board member Ted Schlein, managing partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “John’s addition to the board is a reflection of Shape’s position in the security industry, and his expertise will help ensure that many more enterprises will look to Shape to protect their websites, brands, and customers.”

About Shape Security

Shape Security is the developer of the world’s first botwall: the ShapeShifter. Led by cybersecurity experts and former executives from Google, the Pentagon, McAfee, VMware, Cisco and Mozilla, the company has raised $66 million in Series A, B and C funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Venrock, Norwest Venture Partners, Google Ventures, Sierra Ventures, Allegis Capital, Wing Venture Partners, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures, Baseline Ventures, former Symantec CEO Enrique Salem, and executives from Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Square.

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