Serial IT security entrepreneur is at it again
Phishing, that is, the Internet-based theft of identity, is damaging the economy to the tune of about $46 billion a year; an IT security entrepreneur who has already launched two successful companies has just closed the financing round for his new venture — a company aiming to combat phishing
If anyone is entitled to be described as a serial entrepreneur, Shlomo Kramer deserves the moniker. First, he helped found Check Point Software Technologies of Ramat Gan, Israel (Nasdaq: CHKP) (you may recall that in early spring Check Point called off its planned $225 million acquisition of Columbia, Maryland-based intrusion-prevention firm Sourcefire: The deal fell victim to the growing unease with the trend seeing more and more non-U.S. companies acquiring U.S. critical infrastructure and IT security companies; that unease only intensified as news surfaced earlier this year about a UAE-based company buying into management of major U.S. seaports. Kramer then founded Imperva, with offices in Ramat Gan, Israel and Foster City, California.
Now Kramer is at it again. He has just founded another data security startup called Trusteer, also located in Ramat Gan, Israel. The company is working on technology to protect against cyberthreats, especially against phishing, aiming to increase consumers’ confidence in e-commerce. Such confidence needs bolstering: According to U.S. government sources, phishing is causing damage of about $46 billion a year. Haaretz’s Raphael Fogel reports that Trusteer will be managed by Mickey Boodaei, another founder of Imperva. Trusteer has closed its first financing round and is now recruiting talent for its R&D activities (see lists of jobs available on the company’s Web site). Trusteer’s first products will be available sometime in 2007.
-read more in Raphael Fogel’s Haaretz report; see Trsuteer Web site; and see Check Point Web site; on the aborted Check Point-Sourcefire deal, see Robert Lemos’s SecurityFocus report; also see Imperva Web site
Fear of e-crimes
Irving Kristol is credited with launching that trend in U.S. politics and letters which has come to be called neo-conservatism. He once said that a neoconservative is “a liberal who has been mugged by reality.” If he were to coin this pithy phrase today, he probably would have replaced “mugged by reality” with “whose identity was stolen by cybercriminals.” Indeed, people fear e-crime more than mugging or car theft, according to a new report from Get Safe Online (GSO). According to the organization, 24 percent of people are deterred from Internet banking because of e-crime fears, and 18 percent from online shopping.
Simon Moores, head of research consultancy Zentelligence, warned, however: “GSO is a very small Band-Aid on a very large gunshot wound. The [e-crime] genie is out of the bottle and out of control.” He has previously suggested that e-crime is costing U.K. business 40 million pounds ($74 million) a year. GSO’s managing director, Tony Neate has produced the report at a time when business fears the government is not taking high-tech crime seriously enough. GSO depends upon sponsors to spread its e-crime awareness message and the U.K. government, through the Serious Organized Crime Association (SOCA), puts in 150,000 pounds a year. Other sponsors such as Microsoft, eBay, and HSBC have put in 155,000 pounds each.
Since SOCA absorbed the National High-Tech Crime Unit (NHTCU), the NHTCU Web site has been shut down and there is now no confidential contact point for business to report e-crime. Sharon Lemon, deputy director of SOCA, said the website had been closed because the branding was wrong, and a confidential e-crime reporting contact point would appear from SOCA soon.
-read more in Chris Mellor’s Techworld.com report
