The Global Cyber Innovation Summit (GCIS)-- the “Davos Of Cybersecurity” --Announces “The Disrupt 8” Innovation Award Winners

Given Year One Success: GCIS’ Second Annual Summit Planned in Baltimore, MD on May 13-14, 2020

BALTIMORE, MD.  (May 2, 2019) The Global Cyber Innovation Summit (GCIS) officials formally announced the eight winners of the DISRUPT award today. This new award honors very early stage cybersecurity startups that demonstrated substantial promise in the development of disruptive innovation in the cybersecurity sector. The technology focus of these companies is broad: a new type of homomorphic encryption, a way to eliminate “false positives” of suspected cyber attacks, a better way to train cyber pros; and new perspectives on the impending revolution in quantum computing.

--

The Disrupt winners

were Enveil, Immersive Labs, Inrupt, Panaseer, Prevailion, Quantum Xchange, and Source Defense. The eighth company winner declined to be identified for competitive reasons.

Winners came from the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel. Two of the companies are led by former US intelligence engineers and were originally housed at DataTribe, a cybersecurity startup “foundry” in nearby Fulton, Maryland that helps build and coach entrepreneurial teams consisting largely of veterans of the National Security Agency (NSA) and other federal government agencies and laboratories.

The 2019 list of winners are: 

Enveil.  CEO Ellison Anne Williams, a 12-year NSA veteran, is working on breakthroughs in homomorphic encryption (HE), which enables the processing of encrypted data while it is use. Enveil’s core technology includes secure enclaves and multi-party computation. The technology is in use in advanced use cases at a  number large and agencies.

Immersive Labs.

This education company connects cyber pros and prospective pros involved in continuous cybersecurity training via on-line story-driven exercises that cover everything from cyber basics, to threat hunting, to reverse engineering malware. Hundreds of practical, gamified “laboratories” are dedicated to a huge range of cyber skills and mapped against industry frameworks. In contrast, founder James Hadley says traditional classroom-based cyber training is difficult to scale and cannot regularly keep pace with organizational needs.

Inrupt.

Under the aegis of CEO John Bruce and co-founder Tim Berners-Lee, Inrupt is working on restoring the Internet to its original, decentralized roots as a way to sidestep cyber attacks. Bruce says that users have been conditioned to give data to a service provider for processing. This opens security vulnerabilities. Inrupt’s alternative approach includes giving each human being a unique identification and a personal online data store.

Panaseer.

CEO Nik Whitfield says his London-based startup believes that defining and implementing a robust cyber hygiene strategy is the key to preventing cyberattacks before they even happen. To this end, the company automatically consumes and analyses data from security, IT and business solutions, and provides a “single pane of glass” for complete and accurate cyber situational awareness and visibility.

Prevailion.

Comparing the compromise of third-party ecosystems to the outbreak of an epidemic, Prevailion CEO Karim Hijazi says his company focuses on identifying malware-based cyber attacks as they occur, materially reducing the time that an adversary can dwell within the networks of a target. Prevailion’s approach is to identify widespread attacks on corporate environments at scale, focusing on malicious signals rather than noise – a workaround of an overabundance of false positives.

Quantum Exchange.

CEO John Prisco sees his company as taking on the defensive possibilities of the impending revolution in quantum computing. Quantum Exchange creates a quantum key out of light and has extended the range of quantum key distribution beyond 100 kilometers. Quantum Exchange’s first-of-a-kind quantum-secured network, Phio, enables secure key-sharing over a wide network.

Source Defense. CEO Hadar Blutrich, extends website security to the client side by preventing formjacking--the use of malicious JavaScript code to steal credit card details and other information-- from payment forms on the checkout web pages of e-commerce sites. The company’s solution prevents attacks and also alerts the enterprise of attempted disruptions in real time. The company has created “virtual pages” -- essentially real-time sandboxes that isolate scripts.

Inaugural Global Cyber Innovation Summit (GCIS) Lauded For Thought-Provoking Content By Cyber Leaders and CISOs

In May 2019, GCIS brought together a preeminent group of leading Global 2000 CISO executives, cyber technology innovators, policy thought leaders, and members of the cyber investment community to catalyze the industry into creating more effective cyber defenses. This unique, invitation-only forum fostered a dynamic exchange of ideas, discussion and collaboration designed to drive true innovation in the efficiency and effectiveness of global cybersecurity strategies and solutions.

The Summit matched the top-tier level of policy and business discussion found at the annual World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland. Given this comparison, the Maryland Summit has been referred to as the “Davos of Cybersecurity” by many of the registered attendees.

“Summit participants enjoyed two days of listening to leading cybersecurity innovators and industry speakers, Chief Information Security Officers and highly promising startups,” said Bob Ackerman, a veteran early-stage cybersecurity venture capitalist and the Chairman of the Summit. “The invitation-only nature of the Summit and the “no selling” policy fostered collaboration and active discussion. Maybe the best part was the unmitigated enthusiasm and interest continuously expressed by many of our Summit participants,” he added. 

May 13-14, 2020 Planned For Second Annual GCIS 

The success of the GCIS at the Sagamore Pendry Hotel has prompted a plan for the second Summit in Baltimore next year on May 13 and May 14.

“It became crystal clear quickly that planning for a second Summit next year was a top priority after we got feedback from the attendees,” Bob Ackerman stated.