{"340851":{"#nid":"340851","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Cybersecurity Companies Boost Atlanta\u2019s Industry Role","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EWritten by\u0026nbsp;Abby Robinson\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech is a startup accelerator that helps Georgia technology entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies. Founded in 1980, ATDC has graduated 135 companies, which together have raised more than a billion dollars in outside financing.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cAtlanta has become an international hub for companies working to counter cybersecurity threats,\u201d said Stephen Fleming, Georgia Tech vice president and executive director of the Enterprise Innovation Institute, ATDC\u2019s parent organization. \u201cGeorgia Tech has world-class faculty and students working in this area, so we are helping grow that industry by spinning off companies that will be important players.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESix of ATDC\u2019s cybersecurity companies are highlighted below.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EDamballa\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDamballa \u2013 an ATDC company co-founded by Georgia Tech School of Computer Science professors Merrick Furst, Wenke Lee and Richard Lipton, and postdoctoral fellow David Dagon \u2013 is a pioneer in the fight against cybercrime.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDamballa recently received $12 million in new equity funding to capitalize on the growing global demand for its network security solution. The product detects the remote control communication that criminals use to breach networks to steal personal and intellectual information, and conduct espionage or other fraudulent transactions.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDamballa is fundamentally changing the way the industry fights cybercrime,\u201d said Val Rahmani, the company\u2019s CEO. \u201cOur innovative solutions protect enterprise, Internet service providers and cloud networks from the devastating effects of botnets, advanced persistent threats, advanced malware and other cybercrime activity.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EDamballa customers include Fortune 1000 companies, Internet and telecommunications service providers, government agencies and educational organizations.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGlobalCrypto\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAfter developing cryptographic security software in his garage for a year, GlobalCrypto CEO Todd Merrill brought his company to ATDC in September 2008.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe became an ATDC company because I was exposed to ATDC companies and realized they are well-built and seemed to have basic business processes taken care of,\u201d said Merrill.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EGlobalCrypto\u2019s RealMe software authenticates users on a website, protects online content, prevents the sharing of online memberships, digitally signs documents and eliminates the need to manage multiple passwords for commonly used Web applications \u2013 all without fobs, cookies, tokens, certificates or cumbersome login requirements. To do this, the software embeds information in a digital image and then exchanges pieces of that image between a user and a Web application to accomplish a strong, bi-directional two-factor authentication.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe software provides regulatory compliance for customers in industries that include e-commerce, credit cards, trading and health care.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGyrus\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn a high-security setting, such as a bank or government agency, preventing information from unintentionally leaving the network security perimeter is important. To thwart such incidents, ATDC company Gyrus has developed an approach that uses hardware events combined with memory analysis to authorize outgoing information before it is sent. Gyrus\u2019 approach, which is based on virtual machine introspection techniques, can be used in conjunction with white listing, firewalls and intrusion prevention.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cSince malware cannot reproduce hardware events coming from a keyboard or mouse, Gyrus interprets a user\u2019s intent based on his or her interactions with the computer and verifies that the application traffic is indeed user-initiated,\u201d said company founder Wenke Lee, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Computer Science.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe technology has been developed with funding from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, Georgia Research Alliance and U.S. Army.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ELancope\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJohn Copeland, a Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering professor, founded the ATDC information security company Lancope in 2000.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI began working on information security solutions after finding bursts of data on my home computer that I recognized as the work of hackers,\u201d said Copeland, who was also the first Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ELancope introduced its first product, called StealthWatch\u2122, in May 2001. StealthWatch uses behavior-based architecture to monitor network traffic and detect suspicious activity. Unlike signature-based and protocol-anomaly products, it can identify unknown assailants and quickly trace the source of attacks. Since its release, StealthWatch has evolved into a family of products that lets enterprises track and analyze their network flows to root out suspicious activity within their network environments.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EPurewire\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003EATDC company Purewire launched in August 2008 and quickly garnered several accolades \u2013 including Gartner Cool Vendor and DEMOgod \u2013 for its technology innovation and thought leadership in the rapidly growing Web security market.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe company provided Web security services to enterprises, as well as a host of social networking security tools for both businesses and consumers. In October 2009, Purewire was acquired by Barracuda Networks, where the technology serves as the foundation for Barracuda\u2019s cloud-based security services and its research scientists run Barracuda Labs, the company\u2019s multidisciplinary global threat research team.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Ch3\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWhisper Communications\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/h3\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhisper Communications\u2019 technology enables secure transmission of sensitive information \u2013 such as credit card numbers \u2013 from cellphones, laptops and other wireless devices. By creating\u0026nbsp;a \u201ccone of silence\u201d around the transmitting and receiving devices, information transmitted with Whisper\u2019s technology is garbled beyond repair beyond a certain distance.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIn the next six months, we plan to launch our first product with a strategic partner in the mobile-payments space,\u201d said Steve McLaughlin, a co-founder of Whisper and a Ken Byers Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe technology has been developed with more than $1 million from the National Science Foundation, Georgia Research Alliance, Imlay Investments and the Georgia Tech Edison Fund.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EAn ATDC company, Whisper Communications was founded in 2009 by McLaughlin, former doctoral student Cenk Argon and current doctoral student Demijan Klinc. In 2010, the company hired Jeffrey McConnell, an experienced early stage CEO, to drive the commercialization of the technology.\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"The Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC) at Georgia Tech is a startup accelerator that helps Georgia technology entrepreneurs launch and build successful companies."}],"uid":"28152","created_gmt":"2014-11-04 16:40:57","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:26","author":"Claire Labanz","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2011-09-13T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2011-09-13T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"340831":{"id":"340831","type":"image","title":"Research Horizons - Cybersecurity - ATDC company Damballa","body":null,"created":"1449245595","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:13:15","changed":"1475895057","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:57","alt":"Research Horizons - Cybersecurity - ATDC company Damballa","file":{"fid":"200709","name":"cybersecurity_1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cybersecurity_1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cybersecurity_1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2337530,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/cybersecurity_1_0.jpg?itok=Ktfz0rDK"}},"340841":{"id":"340841","type":"image","title":"Research Horizons - Cybersecurity - Whisper Communications","body":null,"created":"1449245595","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:13:15","changed":"1475895057","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:50:57","alt":"Research Horizons - Cybersecurity - Whisper Communications","file":{"fid":"200710","name":"cybersecurity_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cybersecurity_2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/cybersecurity_2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2032930,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/cybersecurity_2_0.jpg?itok=fqaUqUTb"}}},"media_ids":["340831","340841"],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"42941","name":"Art Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"108521","name":"Winter\/Spring 2011 Issue"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News\u2028\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2028177 North Avenue\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2028Atlanta, Georgia\u0026nbsp; 30332-0181 \u0026nbsp;USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts:\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2028404-894-6986\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2028\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u2028\u2028\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EBrett Israel\u2028\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-385-1933\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u2028\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:brett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ebrett.israel@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}