# Stemming a rising tide — welcome, c/side! 🌊

As a long-time investor in developer tools and infrastructure companies, I love finding early-mover startups solving an overlooked problem with the opportunity to become a category leader. I also love to find ambitious, scrappy entrepreneurs with a keen sense of product roadmap and go-to-market strategy. That’s why we’re so pleased to welcome c/side, a pioneering cybersecurity startup focused on client-side (i.e. the browser but also any thin-client) attack detection and protection, to our portfolio.

[c/side](https://cside.dev/) is solving the critical issues posed by third-party, browser-side scripts, which have become increasingly common. Marketing teams use them for A/B testing and social media widgets. Customer service needs them for things like chatbots and interactive support pages. Legal teams embed third-party scripts to meet regulatory compliance requirements.

While these scripts make perfect sense, their use means that a company’s website can end up with a ton of executable code from outside parties that hasn’t undergone testing, creating a security blind spot. Today, third-party add-ons can threaten the performance and security of any corporate website. Frighteningly, these third-party scripts can even view and rewrite page content, listen to data entry, or even run a virtual machine in the browser. Sometimes these scripts call other scripts, which call other scripts — malicious code high enough up in the supply chain can make it almost impossible for websites owners to protect themselves.

Just ask [British Airways](https://baways.com/), [Kaiser Permanente](https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/25/kaiser-permanente-health-plan-millions-data-breach/), and any site using the [polyfill.io](https://cside.dev/blog/the-polyfill-attack-explained) javascript how risky unprotected third-party scripts can be. These companies know firsthand how bad actors can inject malicious functionality within browser-side scripts to redirect website visitors, steal sensitive information, or manipulate website content. Exploiting browser-side scripts is such an effective attack vector that it has become a signature move of wily hacking groups like [Magecart](https://cybernews.com/security/magecart-attacks-trends/).

The good news: the c/side team have found a way to outsmart these groups. Founder and CEO [Simon Wijckmans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/wijckmans/?locale=en_US) and his team have created a comprehensive toolkit comprising an advanced proxy service and an AI-driven detection engine to identify and neutralize malicious scripts in real-time.

###### c/side is the only fully autonomous detection tool for assessing third-party scripts. It monitors over 70 attributes and uses various AI detection mechanisms to review scripts, making it the most advanced detection mechanism to date. Notably, adding the c/side script does not add latency and, in many cases, improves site-wide performance.

c/side’s solution has become critically important because:

- **Browsers continue to become more complex** Browsers are designed to execute code from various sources, inherently making them vulnerable. Browser functionality includes features like portable code compilation, JavaScript APIs like WebGPU, and client-side storage like IndexedDB. This expanded functionality increases the potential attack surface.

- **Mobile apps have become commonplace** Progressive web apps (PWAs) enhance the mobile web user experience and improve engagement. However, they also increase the browser attack surface.

- **PCI DSS 4.0 compliance** PCI DSS 4.0 mandates entities handling card data to implement tamper-detection mechanisms by March 31, 2025. c/side’s technology simplifies compliance, making it a critical tool for businesses accepting digital payments via their sites.

- **Client-side security lags backend security** Due to design limitations, traditional security measures, such as firewalls and endpoint protection, often fall short in securing browser activities.

- **Vulnerable infrastructure and open-source supply chain** As a result of increased security awareness on the infrastructure and open-source supply chain, malicious actors are increasingly weaponizing the browser as the place of execution.

- **AI is perfect for weeding through script code** c/side does not rely purely on threat feed intel or easy-to-circumvent detections. The company cleverly uses AI to solve the obscurity that has blocked security for decades.

The team behind c/side comprises senior security engineers from the world’s forefront tech companies. Simon (CEO) was a senior product manager at Vercel and worked on their enterprise-level web application firewall. Prior, he was at Cloudflare, where he worked on their Page Shield product. He is ambitious and possesses business maturity beyond his years. Simon has built a similarly smart, can-do team devoted to the highest levels of quality and care.

###### c/side’s seed round announcement video

I’m excited to announce that Uncork Capital has led c/side’s $6 million seed financing alongside our friends [Mantis VC](https://www.mantisvc.com/), [Scribble Ventures](https://www.scribble.vc/), and [Roar Ventures](https://roarvc.com/).

c/side’s total funding is now $7.7 million, following a [pre-seed round](https://www.securityweek.com/c-side-emerges-from-stealth-mode-with-1-7-million-investment/) announced earlier this year. Scribble and Roar, along with strategic angel investors, also participated in the pre-seed.

Welcome Simon and all the c/siders to the Uncork portfolio. A big thumbs up for addressing an overlooked security concern that safeguards organizations from cyberattacks while simplifying compliance and improving site performance.

Note that c/side’s free tier is now available and [anyone can sign up](https://cside.dev/auth/signup). There are literally zero reasons to not protect your site and your users!