Aviva Zacks of Safety Detective sat down with Liron Barak, Co-Founder and CEO of BitDam, and asked her how her company can help organizations stay secure.
Safety Detective: How did you get into cybersecurity?
Liron Barak: I come from a very technical background. I got a bachelor’s degree in computer science while I was still in high school and then I joined the elite unit of the Israeli intelligence forces. There, I focused on cyber in technical roles for seven years, in research and development. I led a group of data developers and subsequently got my master’s degree in computer science. During this time, I specialized in AI and machine learning. I have been out of the army for about five years, and I feel that there I gained a lot of experience in cybersecurity.
SD: What draws a young woman to cybersecurity and what do you love about it?
LB: This area is certainly driven by a male majority, and there weren’t many women in my particular army unit. After the army, I chose to continue in the cyberspace because it is very dynamic, with attack surfaces changing all the time. There are always new challenges and more opportunities to learn, which I find so interesting and never boring.
SD: How does BitDam keep hackers out of companies’ communications?
LB: We protect enterprises from being breached through different communication channels, including email, Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, Teams, and Zoom—any program with which you can share and collaborate. They share files and links, which could be either legitimate content but could also be malicious attacks, like ransomware, phishing attacks, or malware, which can hurt the organization.
BitDam’s knowledge is from the cyber offensive side. When we founded the company, we developed a unique piece of technology that is able to detect new, unknown tricks that other solutions in the industry are not able to deal with. We hold a few different patents that are registered based on this piece of technology.
We are able to integrate with any of your organization’s communication channels—emails, storage drives, and instant messaging platforms—to stop malicious files and links that usually bypass the standard security solutions and prevent them from reaching their organization’s network and the end-users’ mailboxes.
SD: What industries use BitDam services?
LB: There are various industries that use our services because any organization that sends emails, uses a computer, and has a network needs our solution. But there are some industries that are more sensitive to attacks, and receiving a phishing companion in their organization can hurt their brand or financial situation, which could be a dramatic end for them—for example, financial institutions, local US governments, and the healthcare industry.
SD: What are the worst cyber threats that people should be concerned about today?
LB: Phishing is on the rise. No matter what solution organizations are using, how sophisticated it is, and how their cybersecurity budgets are huge, their employees are clicking those phishing links and getting into fake websites asking for their user credentials and are easily fooled into these scams. We can really see that these attacks are on the rise.
SD: How do you see cybersecurity developing in the next five years or so?
LB: I believe that in the next five years, migration to the cloud will be a focus: how to build your infrastructure around it and how to build the cybersecurity aspects of it because you don’t own your data anymore. There will be a lot of experts and they’re there already, but I think that this will be on the rise. There will be more experts in this matter that will provide solutions or even advice on the best practices.