During the VIP Event: Hosts Del Mar in Ibiza, we had the opportunity to sit down for an exclusive conversation with Patric Rosati from Monarx, a cybersecurity company focused entirely on securing one of the internet’s most vulnerable – and often overlooked – layers: web hosting environments.
While the Mediterranean breeze and relaxed atmosphere might suggest vacation, our topic was a stark contrast – the evolving, accelerating war between attackers and defenders online.
“First, thank you for coming, Conrad, and yeah, beautiful setting. We’re here, shame we’re not on video because people can’t see, but yeah, so Monarx is, we are a cybersecurity company that has built our security platform specifically for web hosters, as you mentioned.“
Why hosting needs a different kind of security
From the outset, it’s clear that Monarx has a precise mission: to protect the web hosting backbone of the internet. And they’re doing it by focusing not on enterprises or cloud-native giants, but on shared hosting infrastructures – systems that, while incredibly common, are notoriously hard to secure. These shared environments often contain thousands of websites on a single server, meaning a vulnerability in one account can serve as a gateway to countless others.
“The footprint of attacks is much, much larger because of a shared server might have 5,000 users on it, whereas a cloud server might protect one server, one website that’s very, very important. And, you know, they get far less threats. So the volume of threats that we see is just frankly insane compared to others.”
This is where scale becomes not just a benefit, but a burden. Hosting providers may offer affordable, high-volume solutions for small businesses and developers, but they do so at a constant security cost. And as Patric pointed out, the gap between attack volume and available defense grows wider each year.
One factor responsible for this imbalance is something we usually associate with progress: artificial intelligence. While AI is revolutionizing industries, it has also dramatically lowered the entry barrier for attackers.
“Unfortunately, AI is now more beneficial for the bad guys than the good guys, because we’re always chasing them.”
This statement may sound like hyperbole, but the statistics bear it out. Monarx’s systems processed 1.3 trillion malicious files last year alone. That figure doesn’t just signal growth; it illustrates a systemic shift in how fast, and how creatively, cyberattacks are being generated and deployed.
“We processed 1.3 trillion with the T files last year in our cloud that were all bad. You get numb, that number is so big, like what does that mean, right? But it’s the sheer volume.“
To put it in perspective: this isn’t a trickle of bad traffic. It’s a tsunami. And it’s one that Monarx has to ride in real time. Their team doesn’t have the luxury of reflection; they operate in a mode of constant forward motion, scanning for new patterns, anomalies, and vulnerabilities before they turn into front-page incidents.
“We saw an attack just after New Year’s this year. And in two days, we had more, it was more threats that we saw than all of last year.“
The pace of change is staggering. Even in a field used to rapid evolution, the leap between last year’s technology and today’s threats is disorienting. And perhaps more critically, it’s not just the tools that are evolving, but the people and nations behind them.
“It was a state-sponsored attack that was just going out and hitting all specific vulnerabilities for WordPress, so specific plugins that they were looking for.“
This paints a sobering picture: shared hosting is no longer a secondary concern. It is a primary battlefield. And it’s where nation-state level threats are now being tested.
“Even last year, that technology wasn’t available so it’s evolving so fast and our product roadmap has to always change because of this so what we were going to build last year might not be relevant in six months much less now.“
Imagine running a company where six-month product plans are rendered obsolete by the pace of cybercrime. That’s the world Monarx lives in. The team must remain agile, predictive, and flexible – all while safeguarding millions of customer websites across six continents.
“They use it as a testing ground to improve their malware, to then go into banks or legal organizations, or get really heavy PII.“
In other words, hosting platforms are no longer just collateral damage – they’re proving grounds for more sophisticated campaigns. If malware works against a hoster, it graduates to targets like financial institutions and government systems. That’s why the stakes are so high.
“We try to be a fully managed security suite. So customers don’t have to go in and tweak gray lists or white lists or black lists or other things. They just say, okay, let’s turn that on, set it and forget it.“
This vision of hands-off protection sounds deceptively simple. But behind the scenes, Monarx is performing the equivalent of daily threat surgery – diagnosing, mitigating, and deploying countermeasures at scale. For hosters, this kind of “silent shield” is a game changer. It allows them to focus on uptime, performance and customer support, while Monarx handles the war in the background.
“The name of the game used to be for IPs, for example, to stop IPs, so to stop brute force and DOS attacks, denial of service, or just IP blacklisting. That doesn’t work anymore because one IP can be responsible for a million and a half other ones, right?“
Rethinking traditional defenses
Security models built on static rules are crumbling. The enemy is not a fixed list of IPs, but a living, shifting ecosystem. One node may house a million variants. Even worse, that node may look harmless, even familiar.
“It could be a web crawler, like a Google web crawler, for example, that a bad guy has and is just hitting it. And so it’s not just like it’s a known bad attack. It can be legitimately good code that has good purposes that bad guys get.“
This ambiguity is what makes modern cyber defense so complex. It’s not enough to block what looks dangerous. Today, defenders must understand context, behavior, and intent – often without time for human judgment.
“It’s very, very hard for traditional engines that rely on signatures to detect because it’s just code.“
At the heart of Monarx’s philosophy is this realization: cybersecurity isn’t about identifying “bad things” anymore. It’s about understanding how good things are being used for bad purposes. And that’s a challenge only automation, AI, and an experienced threat team can hope to meet.
“That’s exactly right. One of the key differentiators of us is we try to be a fully managed security suite.“
That means taking responsibility – not just offering tools. In a world where most providers sell dashboards and APIs, Monarx sells peace of mind.
Monarx and the next battlefront
As the conversation draws to a close, one thing becomes evident: Monarx is not merely reacting to threats – it is anticipating them, evolving with them, and in many cases, staying one step ahead. Their mission to provide fully managed, intelligent security for the web hosting industry is not a marketing slogan – it’s a necessity grounded in data, vigilance, and a deep understanding of how modern threats behave.
In a world where the smallest website can become the entry point for global-scale attacks, Monarx’s commitment to proactive defense transforms them from a vendor into an indispensable partner. For hosting providers navigating an increasingly hostile digital environment, that kind of ally isn’t just valuable – it’s vital.
Special thanks to Atarim and Monarx for making this conversation possible at the unforgettable VIP Event: Hosts Del Mar in Ibiza.