As we plan for 2019, our team is also taking time to review how 2018 played out for us, for our customers, and for the world. 2018 wasn’t a great year for data security at many companies. Over 800 breaches were made public, many of which were preventable. As a company that is primarily focused on securing data, we are always thinking where we can do more to help. 

One conversation that emerged among our team was how to explain our “why” better. That is—why we care about data security, why we took funding, and why we rebranded. If we do a better job of connecting our why to the products we’ve created, we might be able to better show the world how we help make data breaches irrelevant.

You see, we used to be called StrongAuth, Inc., and we solved some of the biggest security challenges for some of the largest banks, healthcare institutions, e-commerce moguls, and others across the globe. Entirely bootstrapped, our founder did this with little resources and a surprisingly small team.

So he sought Series A funding to seek invaluable partnerships and allow our company the resources it needed to grow. Growth not for growth’s sake, but instead to enable us to solve bigger problems, help communities in need, and change the way the world thinks about breach prevention. For his part, our founder wants to focus on solving international identity and data security challenges that have arisen in the modern world. That is his why.

Arshad Noor, our Founder and CTO: “While I recognize that our mission is not an easy one, I strongly believe it is an extremely critical one—for reasons far more important than just protecting sensitive data. There are forces at work that are attempting to destroy trust on the internet; and through the erosion of trust, sow discord among people, with the ultimate goal of weakening the foundations of democracy. It seems a far cry to go from protecting information to protecting the foundations of democracy; but, without trust, which depends on strong security to protect information and systems (which encompasses policies and processes), both are threatened.”

Our mission—our why—is to make breaches irrelevant.

What does that mean? Simply put, companies can’t stop every potential threat from breaching the network. There will always be attackers getting through and zero-day vulnerabilities being exploited. But you can make their success in breaching the network a non-starter. Imagine getting breached, but your data is so secure, so encrypted, that the attackers get nothing, and then you use the breach detection and analysis data to improve your network security with far lower amounts of risk. This future is possible, but not without overcoming stubborn obstacles like bad password practices, mistaken assumptions about outsourced security, and the belief that it might not happen to you.

Behavior change is hard—it takes time, patience, and a lot of money. We rebranded after the funding to improve our visibility and challenge the norm: no shields or danger or fear from us. We want StrongKey to be unlike any security company in the industry. Not for competitive advantage over industry goliaths, but so we can help promote the best data security options no matter the provider. Our new logo, Cipher, is deliberately both confident and approachable, because we seek to be a resource and helping hand, not a voice perpetuating fear.

Of course we want prospects to choose StrongKey, but our first priority is educating security professionals (decision makers, implementers, compliance officials, etc.) on the most effective ways to make breaches irrelevant and how to stay ahead of compliance regulations to keep their customer’s data safe.

Our 2019 vision is simple: stay true to our values and make breaches irrelevant for as many companies as possible. We have even more open source and outreach projects on the horizon that we are excited to share as 2019 progresses, and we cannot wait to make our vision a reality for all of us. Happy New Year!