By Allan Maurer
CHARLOTTE, NC—As society developed, says computer scientist Yuliang Zheng, Ph.D., defense evolved from the individual to the village to armies. Internet security today needs to evolve the same way, Zheng, says. He co-founded Calyptix with former student Lawrence Teo to build that security infrastructure one sale at a time.
Calyptix itself evolved from Teo’s Ph.D. thesis on creating an Internet defense force. Teo worked with Dr. Zheng at Australia’s Monash University back in 2000. When the University of North Carolina at Charlotte recruited the professor, who is a noted cryptography expert, he invited Teo to finish his studies there.
They saw commercial possibilities in the idea of selling an all-in-one Internet security shield, each device instantly sharing information about identified attacks with others on the network. They started Calyptix in 2002 and brought in attorney Ben Yarbrough as CEO to develop and sell the DVD-player sized devices called AccessEnforcer.
AccessEnforcer protects networks from spam, viruses, spyware, unauthorized web surfing, hackers and other cyber threats in organizations in the professional and financial services, manufacturing and not-for-profit sectors.
They took the name Calyptix from Eucalyptus Sideroxylon, popularly known as red ironbark, an Australian hard wood tree renowned for its toughness. The founder-funded company won the UNC Charlotte’s 2003 Five Ventures Business Plan competition.
Aiming its product primarily at small and mid-sized businesses, the company sells AccessEnforcer at $999 for ten people and a $449 annual renewal rate. That’s less than 10 percent of comparable offerings from competitors. The all-in-one device needs no additional hardware.
Do businesses need high-powered protection? “One of our customers,” says Yarbrough, “a professional services firm, experienced more than 30,000 network attacks from 1,000 different sources from all over the world in 30 days.
“When you plug into the Net, you’re exposing yourself to the entire world and most of the attacks are invisible. A typical small business gets 1,000 attacks a day it doesn’t know about and that’s without taking email into account. Ninety-nine percent of small businesses are inadequately protected.”
Yarbrough notes, “The security market is fragmented, highly competitive and a highly technical environment. There is a disconnect between functional security development and marketing. We’re providing the power of a $20,000 security platform for affordable prices – and, as far as capabilities go – users can’t tell the difference.”
Focused on longterm goal
Calyptix has a much larger longterm goal than just selling individual customers, however. “Our goal is to get the boxes deployed and turn the security architecture of the Internet into a collaborative approach.”
Each device says Zheng, chief technology officer of the company, “is like a soldier. We’re building an army.”
“This is not a short term game,” says Yarbrough. “We’re building a whole new approach to security from the bottom up.” He says the AccessEnforcer device has an “incredibly secure operating system with some of the highest level of encryption build in,” and was built from day one to support the company’s long term goal.
The Calyptix box has an automatic processor that snares attacks without human intervention to eliminate the window the attackers use. “It’s pro-active rather than re-active,” says Yarbrough.
Earlier this year, Calyptix spotted a security hole in Unified Threat Management devices (which, like the Calyptix box, are designed to offer all-in-one protection against Internet threats), routers, and some Web sites. The warning it issued caused some controversy in the security field (see link to TJS’s report below).
The company is participating as a Demo Company at North Carolina’s CED October 10-11 Tech Conference and will demonstrate its Internet security platform. Yarbrough says Calyptix is more interested in exposing its product to other companies than in seeking venture backing through the event. “Although we’re always looking to extend our investor network,” he adds.
On the Web: www.calyptix.com
For TechJournal South’s article about Calyptix, “Charlotte firm stirs debate with security warning,” see: http://techjournalsouth.com/news/article.html?item_id=3474
© 2007, TechJournal South. All rights reserved.
