Speaker 1: Hey, folks were recording at Chainlinks smart Con event and
Speaker 1: joining me is Mike O'Keefe, who is the head of
Speaker 1: sales and customer success at Immunify. Mike, great to have you.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Tony, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mike, excited to learn about Immunify. But tell us
Speaker 1: a bit about yourself and your background in crypto.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little bit of an interesting story how
Speaker 2: I got here. So, I had about almost a decade
Speaker 2: in Tradfy, previously mostly on the buy side, and then
Speaker 2: I went into financial technology, working for first a data
Speaker 2: aggregation and reporting provider for wealth management folks SO family Offices, Aris, etc. Sure,
Speaker 2: then I jumped over to alternative data management and a
Speaker 2: fintech startup. But in between I actually had a stop
Speaker 2: with a customer of mine and we ended up launching
Speaker 2: a company that became a nonprofit, and the nonprofit was
Speaker 2: about fiduciary duty within financial services. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: this is around twenty sixteen or so, I started very
Speaker 2: interested in crypto myself, Sure, and I felt it was
Speaker 2: a lack of fiduciary duty on the part of wealth
Speaker 2: managers to not be considering how they would implement crypto
Speaker 2: into the portfolios. Sure, So eventually years later the opportunity
Speaker 2: to get into crypto security comes my way, and I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, this is it. This is the key
Speaker 2: to get rid of that career risk element that people
Speaker 2: were feeling when they were managing portfolios in regards to
Speaker 2: crypto and remove that and hopefully now we're seeing a
Speaker 2: lot here at Smartcon this year, a lot of trad
Speaker 2: five money coming on chain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible the amount of trad FI institutions that
Speaker 1: are now building, whether they're launching et aps, tokenizing stable coins.
Speaker 1: What is it like to see all these folks coming in?
Speaker 2: You know, I like to think I'm not that smart
Speaker 2: of a guy, but I'm smart enough to follow really
Speaker 2: smart people. And so that's one of the other reasons
Speaker 2: I got into crypto is I started to see the
Speaker 2: people who I admired, people I thought that were very intelligent,
Speaker 2: be drawn to the space from the traditional finance spaces,
Speaker 2: from financial services, from technology, and that really drove me here.
Speaker 2: And there's so many brilliant people that are still working
Speaker 2: in TRATFI that are starting to see exactly what I
Speaker 2: can do for their customers or their businesses and how
Speaker 2: you know this high tide can lift all boats.
Speaker 1: So tell us a bit about immunify. What is it
Speaker 1: and what do you guys do?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we were founded about almost five years ago
Speaker 2: now and we started bug bounties and crowd security. We
Speaker 2: are by far the most successful bug bounty platform in
Speaker 2: the web three space. We've paid out over one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty one million dollars worth of bounties to ethical
Speaker 2: white hats or ethical hackers you might call them, or
Speaker 2: security researchers. And recently we've started to expand our presence
Speaker 2: to be a full chain, sorry, a full service solution
Speaker 2: for on chain and off chain security. So we've created
Speaker 2: a Magnus platform where folks can log in single point
Speaker 2: of contact to manage as much of their security operations
Speaker 2: as possible.
Speaker 1: What you guys, as you're doing is such a critical
Speaker 1: component of the industry security right because regardless of if
Speaker 1: tradfis here or whoever is here, if our assets are
Speaker 1: not secure, if we can't stop bad actors and put
Speaker 1: that buffer there, then it's all going to collapse. So
Speaker 1: walk us through a bit about about how your what
Speaker 1: your tech stack looks like to have the security layers
Speaker 1: and who you're working with.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, So we've taken a very purpose built approach
Speaker 2: to security in that we have a lot of We
Speaker 2: have the biggest library of vulnerability is available in the space,
Speaker 2: so that's going to be hugely powerful. Sure, And the
Speaker 2: other thing that we really value is different security points
Speaker 2: of view in the place. Immunified does not want to
Speaker 2: pretend that we can build the best technology for unchaine
Speaker 2: monitoring as an example. Sure, there are a bunch of
Speaker 2: players who have done that already, but there are a
Speaker 2: bunch of things that we can build. So as an example,
Speaker 2: we have our AI agent which is going to scan
Speaker 2: all those vulnerabilities they just talked about and be able
Speaker 2: to provide output to projects who are either in the
Speaker 2: build stage via ploor request reviews or in the audit
Speaker 2: stage doing the same thing as a compliment to to
Speaker 2: humans in the loop, at least at this stage of
Speaker 2: where we are today.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Additionally, we've come up with you know, our multi sick
Speaker 2: transaction review as well as our flagship bug bounties, audits
Speaker 2: and audit competitions. On the flip side, we've got many
Speaker 2: great players who are doing things like on chain monitoring
Speaker 2: or chain patrols, brand protection, which is hugely important for projects. Sure,
Speaker 2: and we've started to integrate these best in class partners,
Speaker 2: which you can see, you know, on our website or
Speaker 2: if you can talk to us with our tools, to
Speaker 2: have multiple security points of view, but still just have
Speaker 2: that one touch point.
Speaker 1: So you're working. I see at a list here that
Speaker 1: I put down chain Link, Ethereum Foundation, Optimism, arbitrump. It
Speaker 1: sounds like you're working with the major blockchains to help
Speaker 1: their improve their security.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So we've got over three hundred and thirty current customers.
Speaker 2: We've serviced over five hundred customers projects, l ones, l
Speaker 2: two's infrastructure, projects, oracles, you name it. We have a
Speaker 2: solution for pretty much every type of project, every type
Speaker 2: of Web three player in the game, and we have
Speaker 2: pretty tight relationships with many of them, including the folks
Speaker 2: here today.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the use of an AI agent, So are
Speaker 1: you using AI in different ways to help accomplish what
Speaker 1: you're doing?
Speaker 2: We are, right, So there's a few ways that we're
Speaker 2: doing it. The first is pretty straightforward, and you're hearing
Speaker 2: a lot about it, especially in like crypto Twitter, which
Speaker 2: is like who can find the most bugs using an
Speaker 2: AI agent, right, and so that's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a bot race there. On the other hand, we also
Speaker 2: have the orchestration piece, which is just like, how can
Speaker 2: you bring all these security pieces together in a thoughtful way.
Speaker 2: So one of the things we've done, as an example,
Speaker 2: is we've got an ability to say, let's look at
Speaker 2: your smart contracts, let's look at the deployers, and let's
Speaker 2: see when a new contract is deployed, can we automatically
Speaker 2: add protection to it without you touching a button? As
Speaker 2: an example. Sure. The last thing is what we call
Speaker 2: our guardian AI. It's I don't know what to do.
Speaker 2: I'm mentoring the space. We are trad five players that
Speaker 2: are coming into the space, and we want to know
Speaker 2: how should we build out our security stack. And we've
Speaker 2: simply implemented best practices into what we call our guardian
Speaker 2: AI and it allows folks to ask basic questions two
Speaker 2: very very intermediate or advanced questions of what should I
Speaker 2: do next to advance my security posture?
Speaker 1: Man, I'm just thinking about a lot of the exploits
Speaker 1: and things that have happened. Do you think that the
Speaker 1: bad actors may also use AI and to try to
Speaker 1: attack blockchains? And different things in the industry.
Speaker 2: I don't see why they wouldn't If it works for them, right,
Speaker 2: if it's an available tool for for some of us,
Speaker 2: why wouldn't they do it as well. The thing is
Speaker 2: that we're you know, at least here at a meati
Speaker 2: files at you know, in other places do have these
Speaker 2: closed source repositories of what's going on. That's a little
Speaker 2: bit you know at mass adoption should be a nice
Speaker 2: tipping point for the space to make sure at least
Speaker 2: you're fleshing out like those very common mistakes that people
Speaker 2: can make.
Speaker 1: Talk to us a bit about some of the common
Speaker 1: threats that you're seeing across multiple blockchains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I think there's been events in the news
Speaker 2: recently that are pretty common mistakes that we've seen over
Speaker 2: the years that are again being brought into the news unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Which is something that we all want to be mindful of,
Speaker 2: is how do you stop us off? How do you
Speaker 2: find it when it's on live production code with funds
Speaker 2: at risk? And a lot of that comes down to
Speaker 2: our bug balanties we've done. It's incredible job our our
Speaker 2: security researcher community and finding those things. I think at
Speaker 2: the end of the day. It really comes down to
Speaker 2: just adding all those layers of Swiss cheese to the
Speaker 2: stack and never getting complacent and always staying vigilant, right,
Speaker 2: because you truly don't know when there's something hidden that
Speaker 2: someone can exploit. And black hats have thee of being
Speaker 2: patient where businesses do not have that advantage.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure. And this is a dumb question and
Speaker 1: I probably know the answer. But who's funding the bounties?
Speaker 1: And so is the projects you're working with?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the projects themselves fund the bounties. Okay, so they
Speaker 2: we work with them to decide what the funds at
Speaker 2: risk might be, what an appropriate bounty size would be,
Speaker 2: and then they will fund the bounties themselves. Got it.
Speaker 1: And what's on your roadmap? What can we expect in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six?
Speaker 2: Oh man, So we have a lot of really exciting
Speaker 2: things on our roadmap, more integrations with security partners, a
Speaker 2: few more firstart party tools that we'll be building. The
Speaker 2: big thing that we're really excited about is we have
Speaker 2: announced our token, and the token's utility is, frankly, to
Speaker 2: keep the flywheel spinning between our partners, our projects, and
Speaker 2: our security researchers. Sure and so I think we're creating
Speaker 2: a really nice, a really nice economy with our token
Speaker 2: so that folks can stake the token to make sure
Speaker 2: that they stay more safe, and that incentivizes security researchers
Speaker 2: and the partners UH to work with them to do so.
Speaker 2: So I think that's the biggest change for our business
Speaker 2: in the coming year and the coming months, even as
Speaker 2: well as just the transition from being known as a
Speaker 2: crowd security platform to having this hub and spoke approach
Speaker 2: with the Magnus platform.
Speaker 1: M Now, one of the things folks are waiting for
Speaker 1: is the Cloudy Act of Crypto Market Structure Bill to pass.
Speaker 1: We know it's kind of stuck right now we government
Speaker 1: shut down. How are you guys viewing that? Does I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've that addresses security issues or things
Speaker 1: like that, but you know, are there any commonalities common
Speaker 1: ground there?
Speaker 2: You know, we typically just as a as our as
Speaker 2: our general policy, don't really comment on regulation or or
Speaker 2: legislation for really any government. We do participate in, you know,
Speaker 2: working through it when we're able to participate in doing
Speaker 2: that or giving our two cents into what that may be,
Speaker 2: depending on the jurisdiction and Obviously, the nice thing about
Speaker 2: a lot of the things we're working on is that
Speaker 2: the security tools are put in place. The partners that
Speaker 2: we have, we tend to make sure that they are
Speaker 2: compliant or will be compliant with any regulation that comes along. So, okay,
Speaker 2: that is something sort of as a service we'd almost provide,
Speaker 2: is that to make sure that folks who have the
Speaker 2: security posture are remaining compliant with any legislation that comes
Speaker 2: in terms of specific legislation, we stay away from that
Speaker 2: third rail to a specific or specific regulation to we
Speaker 2: stay away from specifics there.
Speaker 1: But that's great that you offer that service and make
Speaker 1: sure it helped them make sure they're compliant with what's
Speaker 1: out the law.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to the extent that we can, and if we can't,
Speaker 2: we certainly have the partners who can help them.
Speaker 1: You know, are the folks are you working with TRADFI
Speaker 1: institutions that are coming in who have security concerns and issues.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can name drop or you
Speaker 1: could tell us the type of institutions that they are.
Speaker 2: So our goal from the beginning almost five years ago
Speaker 2: and I've only been here for two and a half years,
Speaker 2: but our goal has always been to bring more funds
Speaker 2: on chain and security is the way to do that.
Speaker 2: So we are absolutely working where and when we can
Speaker 2: with the institutions or blockchains that are linked closely with institutions,
Speaker 2: or infrastructure that is linked closely with institutions, like a
Speaker 2: lot of the folks we're seeing here today, it's Marcan right,
Speaker 2: and have services to provide them, or at the very
Speaker 2: least our security Advisory arm can certainly do that as well. Right,
Speaker 2: we see a lot of we know a lot about
Speaker 2: the web two, we know a lot almost about the
Speaker 2: web two point five spot now of where these things
Speaker 2: start to integrate, and then we don't know a lot
Speaker 2: once we get beyond that. How can you help us
Speaker 2: in that regard? So working with a lot of the
Speaker 2: l ones or the infrastructure projects or the oracles that
Speaker 2: interact with these institutions is certainly right where we want
Speaker 2: to be. That's also place where we've got solutions for
Speaker 2: to help folks.
Speaker 1: PT got it, Mike, great stuff, Looking forward to the
Speaker 1: future updates. Thank you so much for joining.
Speaker 2: Me, Thank you for having me. It was really nice
Speaker 2: to talk to you. Yeah.
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