Brave Browser, Microsoft, Google, Ethlas Execs Join Eleos Labs Advisory Board to Advance Web3 Security

Eleos Labs, a company building anti-fraud web3 solutions, announced its launch on Friday. It is backed by a team of cybersecurity veterans from Brave Browser, Microsoft, Google, and Ethlas, who are joining the company’s advisory board.

Dr. Gennady “Ari” Medvinsky will serve as the Technical Advisor, having spent the last 20 years leading security teams at Google, Grab, and Microsoft. He is also the co-founder of GameFi metaverse, Ethlas. 

Wui Ngiap Foo, previously Head of Technology and Integrity at Grab, will join as Group Advisor. They are also joined by Dr. Ben Livshits as Scientific Advisor, former CEO of Zilliqa Research and Chief Scientist of Brave Browser.

Together with its advisory board of security experts, Eleos Labs plans to launch a suite of products to help web3 users combat theft and fraud.

According to a 2022 crypto crime report by Chainalysis, $3.8 billion was stolen from cryptocurrency businesses, making 2022 the biggest year ever for crypto hacking. Eleos Labs is building a resilient anti-theft system based on enterprise cybersecurity tools to ensure a safer crypto ecosystem, starting with its inaugural product, FailSafe.

FailSafe protects platforms and users by detecting the safety level of smart contracts and wallets and is the first line of defense against theft and fraud, as the solution can determine the risk level of interaction.

In the event of an attack, FailSafe will reject malicious transactions and minimize total loss by keeping the majority of users’ assets in a high-security vault, the company said.

FailSafe’s suite of web3 threat protection tools includes entity reputation scoring, transaction intervention, and solutions to mitigate the imminent threat that quantum computing poses to commonly used signature algorithms, which is the foundation of Web3 key management.

The idea to develop security solutions came from our experience building Ethlas over the past year. Given my former work in security, fraud was always on the top of mind, but the degree of attempted fraud in the industry made us compelled to fix the problem.

Dr. Gennady “Ari” Medvinsky told Metaverse Post.

Web3 security has become a field of great focus as several malicious attacks on high-profile founders and projects in the space were brought to light in the past year. This includes Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network breach last April that resulted in $625 million stolen by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus.

When asked whether Eleos has seen a skill shortage in web3 cybersecurity professionals, Ari told Metaverse Post: “Much of the team comes from decades of personal experience scaling security products in web2, so we have been fortunate to tap on our own operational expertise and networks. For example, being able to include Dr. Ben Livshits as Scientific Advisor, former CEO of Zilliqa Research and Chief Scientist of Brave Browser, is a testament to building a lean but effective team.”

With that said, VCs have been pouring funds into web3 security firms, including Hypernative, which raised $9 million in a seed round last month, and Israeli cybersecurity startup Cyvers, which secured $8 million in a seed round in December. Last October, crypto security startup Web3 Builders raised $7 million in a seed round to build a scam prevention tool for those transacting in NFTs, smart contracts, and crypto.