10 IT security companies to watch
 Data-leak prevention,
behavior-based malware
detection among focus areas
By Ellen Messmer and Cara
Garretson, Network World,
10/15/07
New companies have
to be brash to enter
the network security
market, given that
the industry has
witnessed an explosion
in creativity over
the past five years
and considering that
big players such
as Microsoft and
IBM increasingly
are throwing their
weight around in
security. Nonetheless,
anyone who takes
the time to listen
to what IT managers
say they would like
to see from the security
industry can’t
walk away without
the impression that
there is plenty of
room for the new.
For example, Ryan
Bagnulo, vice president
and head of software
architecture and
innovation at Wachovia,
says he’d like
to see more industry
action on automating
security-policy administration
based on the Organization
for the Advancement
of Structured Information
Standards’ eXtensible
Access Control Markup
Language.
Sometimes entire
groups of users stand
up and declare they
need something new.
The Jericho Forum
wants to see a new
generation of products
and services designed
for the world of
e-commerce, where
traditional firewall-edge
boundaries are vanishing.
Founded: January
2004 (in stealth
mode until the service
launched in September)
Headquarters: Monterey,
California
CEO: Neal
Smith
What the company offers: Virtual
Private Community (VPC),
a private communications
service that forms
virtual business communities
whose members can send
and receive encrypted
e-mail, documents and
other exchanges safely.
The service sets up
a private domain name
for each user and gives
them a related e-mail
address reserved for
private communications
with other WebLOQ users.
VPC is available as
a hosted service, with
a version that companies
can run internally
slated for release
early next year.
Why
it’s worth watching: Instead
of trying to protect
communications at the
edges of corporate
networks, WebLOQ secures
the transit channel
itself. By having encrypted
communications only
with other members
of a community, users
are freed from spam,
viruses, phishing,
and other e-mail Internet
threats. However, such
secure communications
requires that both
parties use the service.
The company hopes to
bring the concept of
online community to
the business world
while ridding e-mail
of the many threats
plaguing it today.
How
the company got its start: Chairman,
CTO, and former ISP
head George Sidman
became intrigued with
the idea of securing
Internet communications.
He formed a team at
his ISP to begin working
on the problem in 2003
and launched the service
in 2007.
Where
the company got its name: Sidman
was amazed that no
one had trademarked “LOQ” (pronounced “lock”)
as a brand. The company
now has trademarked
the terms WebLOQ and
LOQ, intending to launch
a brand around the
latter.
Customers: Database
vendor Objectivity.
Company says some major
banks, law firms and
police agencies are
testing the service.
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