New data protection approach

short time, for instance to provide information to an ad company that is designing a promotional campaign. “Advertising is a highly competitive area, and we can assure the customer that confidential information will be protected,” says Samia.

“That is part of our business plan. We want to allow an organization to collaborate. Identifying information, tracking it and controlling it is the mission,” he states emphatically.

Is your data safe?
Can someone swipe your company’s new fall promotion plan or slogan? Do out-of-the-office laptops have access to pre-patent R&D, financial and HR data? Can you share information with a third party (a lawyer, supplier or ad company) and block access to the company network? “Careless outsource partners, lost portable devices, and WiFi networks are major hazards,” says Samia.

Another source of data leakage is unstructured data, like an e-mail attachment containing confidential information; it could be pricing, blueprints, pay scales or contracts. “Most serious data leaks are from internal sources,” comments the entrepreneur. The cost averages $6 million per leak. It is estimated that 70 percent of employees who are fired or leave a company take sensitive information with them.

The loss of intellectual property — confidential executive communications, information shared with business partners, trade secrets, R&D findings, personnel records, litigation information — jeopardizes a company and can create a revenue shortfall. The information protection and control market is expected to grow to $3 billion by 2011.

A unique approach to assets control
Three years ago, Samia, an honors graduate of the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, and Kaufman, his friend from high school (a tech wiz with a BA in computer science, an MBA, and more than twelve years of anti-hacking and network security expertise) decided to develop a unique approach to information assets control. “We had been talking about starting our own company since high school,” says Covertix’s CEO.

Kanon writes that finally, the two had amassed enough experience to set up shop. Samia had eight years of work in the US with a large brokerage firm and as AVP of business development and strategic marketing for a $13 billion insurance company. “Tzachi had worked on security and networking for several industry giants; he left Amdocs where he was IT manager to start the company,” Samia recounts.

They started out in the technology incubator in Sde Boker, in southern Israel, but will be moving to the center of the country soon.

Covertix is already working with a wide range of users, including pharmaceutical companies, communications, educational, and health organizations.

Projects in Great Britain and Spain are in the hopper. It is targeting mid-sized organizations, which are an underserved market, and expects to make money by the end of the year. That’s very good news for a young startup.