By TN Ashok
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA, Feb. 15, 2022: Cyber-security startup Kapalya Inc. has entered India with the objective of helping governments including central and financial institutions and corporates after having a successful stint with the NSA and FBI in the United States on various issues including security of data in vote banks.
The startup, first launched in 2015 by Mr. Sudesh Kumar, its founder, has successfully managed to successfully launch its own crowd funding investment campaign in the United States through the Start-Engine platform on February 7, 2022, Mr. Kumar announced to the media in India through a zoom conference from Berkely in California.
Founded in 2015, Kapalya’s has offices in Berkeley, California and Honolulu, Hawaii in the USA and Bengaluru in India.
The U.S. has experienced thefts ranging from personnel records to military secrets, often traced to hackers from Russia and China. India is all the more vulnerable, given its frosty geopolitical ties with some of its neighbours, said Sudesh Kumar.
Cyber security breaches have increased at an alarming pace in recent years. The Week reported that about 11.5 lakh incidents of cyberattacks were brought to the notice of India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERTIn) in 2021. Computer systems of Air India were hacked into, compromising the personal and financial information of 4.5 million customers worldwide, while telecom services provider Airtel Ltd and online grocery store BigBasket too were targets, according to a report published in Money Control website.
A CNBC-TV18.com report said about 27% of Indian firms paid an average $5,00,000 to cyber-criminals as ransom during 2021. Partnership with NSA Kapalya’s mission is to secure data and protect governments and enterprises worldwide against ransomware attacks.
What’s Ransomware ? Cyber gangs or criminals like drug cartels infiltrate your computer system or hack it and steal all sensitive and secretive information and block you from being able to open it in your own use and then demand a ransom , mainly paid through crypto currency to allow you to reopen your own files supposedly encrypted. Something like locking you in your house electronically by hacking into your surveillance system and then demanding a ransom to be able to open the door of your house to get out.
Says Sudesh Kumar : “ The Advanced Ransomware Countermeasures (ARC) solution is a game changer which is being developed in collaboration with the National Security Agency (NSA) of the U.S., based on patented technology. Kapalya claims that it is the only company that has partnered with the U.S. government’s leading digital surveillance organisation for this counter ransomware solution.
NSF grant : The company has been awarded grants by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the State of Hawaii to develop the solution.
The NSF grant gives Kapalya the unique advantage of selling its product directly to federal, state and local governments, bypassing the bidding process, while the grant from the State of Hawaii makes it the preferred vendor for state government departments and agencies, Sudesh Kumar said.
The new battlefield Ransomware attacks have increased 148% in 2021*, with hackers, many of them state sponsored, targeting crucial sectors. These include organizations’ that supply water and energy, provide access to daily necessities such as food, financial services, and healthcare. The bigger the target, the more the victim is likely to pay. Infiltration also happens by bribing insiders such as users, contractors, vendors, or partners of an organization to install ransomware on its systems.
Says Kapalya Founder/CEO Sudesh Kumar: “Every organization is concerned about ransomware. In one incident in the U.S., patients died when the hospital’s systems were breached with ransomware and doctors could not promptly administer medication. This is not just about money, but also about saving innocent lives. Indian enterprises and governments too are under constant cyberattack. Our objective is to help Indian enterprises and governments inoculate against these attacks.”
A complete solution Kapalya’s comprehensive enterprise-wide Encryption Management Platform (EMP), unlike those of its competitors, offers the most secure end-to-end encrypted file sharing, Sudesh Kumar said adding, In the event of a ransomware attack, all data can be recovered with zero percent data leakage. Kapalya’s AI/ML-based counter ransomware solution, which is being developed in cooperation with the U.S. government, will inoculate and remediate ransomware in Realtime across a wide range of platforms such as endpoints, mobile, cloud, servers, databases and networks.
