Today, cloud computing is part of daily lives and is continuously changing and evolving. The influence that clouds computing has on one’s personal and business lives is a lasting impact on the world. As a result, data security in the cloud is of the highest priority. Personal and sensitive information are valuable property that must be protected—today and always. However, the security industry is primarily focused on guarding data access through access control mechanisms. These access control mechanisms are failing to protect the sensitive data due to human error, increasing complexity and connectivity. This resulted in higher adoption of data-centric protection mechanisms like encryption, which offers real data protection and significantly better security.
Understanding the current loopholes in the security industry, <>Andrea Pfundmeier (CEO) established Secomba GmbH along with her partner <>Robert Freudenreich (CTO) to cover the data leaks. The company’s product Boxcryptor primarily focuses on zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption, which in comparison to others is very rare in the security industry. It enables people to benefit from new technology while keeping control of their data and makes complex security solutions easy to use.
Andrea explains her view further by saying, “While encryption is nowadays extensively used throughout the security industry and IT in general, the key question is really who has access to the keys and how are they managed. In almost all cases, services themselves can access them and thus weaken the security data encryption.”
Peddling Encryption Software for Cloud Storage Solutions
While studying law and economics, Andrea got to know the legal aspects of data privacy and security. Robert and Andrea worked on different business ideas and confronted with the practical implications when they wanted to use a third-party cloud storage service for the project. They arrived at the conclusion that there was a need for additional data security and thus, they became the part of the security industry because they did not encounter a solution to the problem.
Andrea started Secomba in 2011 with her co-founder Robert, peddling encryption software Boxcryptor for cloud storage solutions like Dropbox and other. She has customers from more than 190 countries using Boxcryptor to protect their data in the cloud. Where other companies take data security, protection and privacy as minor matters, Andrea considers them important. She says, “As an IT security leader, they are at the heart of my values—which is great for our customers, employees, and partners but at the same time also require additional attention and add constraints on our business model and how we can do business in contrast to companies caring less about them.”
Being a leader is not easy, however, Andrea performs the role of the leader astonishingly. She said, “As the Founder/CEO, I am responsible for all non-technical aspects of our business: from Sales and Marketing to Administration, Human Resources and Financials.” Her favorite part of job is how she gets to work with the customers and get first-hand feedback on Boxcryptor. These feedbacks are important to know where its services are lacking and to achieve greater data security. She also states that being able to witness how their year of hard work is impacting other people and companies is very satisfying.
Respectfulness, Helpfulness, Friendliness, and Passion
The Boxcryptor team consists of 25 security leaders, all located in Germany. The culture of the company is characterized by respectfulness, helpfulness, friendliness, and passion. In addition, diversity is also an important value for the company and it always tries to hire people with diverse backgrounds. Almost 50% of team members are female which is pretty rare in the IT security industry.
Anticipating Passwordless Authentication
Daily huge amounts of sensitive data get stored and processed over the internet, hence, the connected servers impose a major risk and ever-growing privacy risk. Due to the new regulations like GDPR or CCPA, the data is not just the new oil anymore but also a liability. This data is highly at risk if not protected. At Secomba, the team tries to educate the market about the need for data-centric protection and also provides the right solution for it.
Andrea considers that the authentication approach is broken too. Although with the update in technology every day, she predicts that in the coming years there might be passwordless authentication in the market. She further anticipates, “The IT and security industry needs to eliminate passwords and bring passwordless authentication into the market. By being one of the first services which supported the new Webauthn standard, we try to set an example for others.”
Providing the Leading Enterprise-Ready Encryption Solution
Boxcryptor was born inspired by the passion for cloud computing security and with a wish to find new solutions to make lives a little easier and more secure. Andrea says, “Our mission is to become the service of choice for everyone who wants to secure files in the cloud. As we grow, we will continue to protect information across devices in the cloud and to develop services and solutions as needs and wants evolve.” The coming years look more promising for Secomba, as the company plans to double the enterprise business. In addition, it further aims to invest in providing the leading enterprise-ready encryption solution, which is not just user-friendly but also provides cross-platform, zero-knowledge and end-to-end encryption. Furthermore, the increasing Office 365 and OneDrive adoption in companies and enterprises is a great growth opportunity, which the company is looking forward to in 2020.
