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Mike Geppi saw firsthand how banks couldn’t give in to the flexibility of wireless networks for fear of cyber attacks.
The former banker turned techpreneur joined with his fellow MBA students at University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business to create Integrata, a company that focuses on securing wireless networks. In just one year since launching Integrata — Italian for integrated — Geppi and his colleagues have signed an exclusive license agreement with the National Security Agency to commercialize its patented Wireless Intrusion Detection System (WIDS) technology.
Geppi expects testing for the product to begin soon and that it will likely go to market in the next year.
The startup is one of numerous emerging in Maryland’s fast-growing cyber security industry. But many of those companies focus on cyber security services rather than products, so Integrata has turned some heads.
At the CyberMaryland 2013 conference last week investors talked about how Maryland needed to boost the product side of its commercial cyber sector. Integrata, now a resident in University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s tech incubator is just the type of company that was touted at the forum.
It’s connections to NSA are especially appealing to those looking for the next big thing.
Geppi said his eight-member team worked closely with NSA in developing the WIDS system. The startup will focus on selling its product to government agencies, the financial services and health care industries.
“There’s a tremendous amount of trepidation in the banking industry about using wireless,” said Geppi, a former banker at BB&T Corp. and M&T Bank. “The only thing that keeps them from taking advantage of wireless is that security problem.”
So far, Integrata has received $100,000 from Maryland’s Tedco commercialization fund and money from private investors. Geppi is seeking more capital from investors as Integrata prepares for the market.
The eight-person company is also in search of new employees, including software developers, engineers and marketing and business development staff.
Geppi, a Bel Air resident, looks forward to growing the company in both employees and eventually revenue. He’s especially excited about being in Maryland’s cyber security scene.
He said that’s why he decided to leave banking to pursue his own business.
“I saw this exciting entrepreneurial ecosystem that was almost under the radar but very robust,” he said.
At least that's what several tech start-ups are anticipating. On Monday,
Wickr, a free app that encrypts text, voice and video messages, became
available on the Android 
platform.
Wickr leaves no trace of your cybermusings on servers or on the device. It was introduced in June 2012 for Apple iOS. Company co-founder Nico Sell champions a return to traditional notions of privacy, and she advocates boycotting Facebook.
Sell wants her daughters, ages 4 and 12, to be able to freely express themselves online without fear of being exploited or put in harm's way. "Private correspondence is a fundamental human right that's extremely important to a free society," says Sell. Facebook and other big Internet companies are ostensibly advertising platforms designed to monetize personal information, she says.
In a similar vein, start-ups Silent Circle, Koolspan and Seecrypt offer systems that use encryption to lock down cellphone calls and e-mails. These services are aimed at corporate executives and employees who routinely work on sensitive projects.
"Various groups are spying, stealing information and organizing fraud against individuals and organizations around the world," says Jon Callas, co-founder and chief technology officer of Silent Circle. "People see the need for defense against these threats."
These new personalized encryption services enable individuals to wrest back ownership of their online behaviors. That's a potential challenge to tech giants and media companies whose business models revolve around tracking what you say, where you navigate and, with GPS, where you are physically located. This is driven primarily to better sell advertising.
Wider use of locked-down phone calls, e-mails and messaging could slow the current iterations of Internet commerce. But by the same token, individualized encryption would hinder government snooping. Data thieves and hacktivists would have a harder time disrupting Western financial and media interests, as hacking groups from Iran and Syria have been doing.
"It is not just the NSA with their hand in the cookie jar; the British, French, Germans are all doing the same thing," says Harvey Boulter, chairman of Seecrypt, a South African company. "Then you have rogue states that are hugely active."
Corporations bear a big burden to protect
proprietary assets in an environment where privacy often is up for
grabs. Individual consumers should start to think more deeply about all
the information they divulge simply by surfing the Internet or clicking a
Facebook 'Like' button.
"Every single person has private information that they most likely wish to keep private -- be it a health issue or financial data ,"
says Boulter. "Like a neighborhood watch, at some point, people will
take action themselves as opposed to relying on others to keep them
safe."
Meanwhile, the soaring use of mobile
devices as work tools, along with the rising use of Internet-connected
devices in everything from television sets and refrigerators to baby
monitors, add to the pressure cooker, says Gregg Smith, chief executive
of Koolspan.
A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.
Why Government Tech Is So Poor
Farhad Manjoo cuts into the government’s baggy IT procurement process.
—Brian Bergstein, deputy editor
The Gonzales Maryland Poll for October was released Thursday, and the results showed approval ratings dropping for Governor Martin O’Malley and President Barack Obama. The poll surveyed 819 registered voters in Maryland who said they were likely to vote in the 2014 General Election.
In an interview aired on WBAL-TV Channel 11, Public Policy Professor and Chair Donald Norris said it’s hard to determine why O’Malley’s approval rating dropped, but a number of laws have taken affect including the controversial gas tax and gun laws.
“O’Malley’s popularity rating if I remember correctly has sort of bounced around. A little bit above 50, a little bit below 50 for some time, so I’m not sure what to make of this,” Norris said.
The poll results showed President Obama’s approval rating dropping from 64% in January to 58% in September. Norris said the government shutdown was a factor, but wondered if the numbers would be higher Thursday with the government back open.
“I think people are concerned about a government shutdown for good reason because the government provides services to the people and when the government is shutdown people can’t get those services,” he said.
Norris also commented on how there is very little wiggle room in the Democratic primary in the race for governor with so many voters undecided and with the poll showing Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown with a twenty-point lead over Attorney General Douglas Gansler.
You can find the full story on WBAL-TV here.
]]>Another chance to catch the most interesting, and important, articles from the previous week on MIT Technology Review.
]]>Criminals are increasingly using the internet to turn dirty money into a spotless shade of green. Now a report written for the United Nations lifts the lid on many of these increasingly popular techniques.
