With so many people working from home on their personal devices during the coronavirus pandemic, cybersecurity has gotten more important than ever. Security companies have developed new ways to protect people from malicious activity on their phones and computers—even when they’re on their own—by detecting phishing messages, political misinformation, denial-of-service attacks, and other types of cyberattacks. They’ve also come up with new techniques to help stop fraud by confirming that people are who they say they are without relying so much on passwords and centralized databases that can themselves be targets for criminals. And they’ve built new systems for securing people’s most sensitive business data, whether it needs to be accessible on corporate servers or on individual employee cellphones. Camille François , Chief innovation officer at Graphika. [Photo: Taylor Kay Johnson ] 1. Graphika For tracking disinformation campaigns around the world through the 2020 elections and beyond Researchers at the social network analysis company Graphika made a name for themselves in 2020 by reporting suspected Russian operations targeting conservative voters before the U.S. presidential election, flagging Chinese state efforts targeting Taiwan, and discovering global misinformation around COVID-19. Working with competing companies—including Facebook, Google, and Twitter—helps Graphika spot deceptive activities that aren’t limited to just one site and get posts taken down, rooting out online disinformation. For more on why Graphika is a 2021 Most Innovative Company, click here . 2. Identiq For using cryptography to allow companies to vouch for users without sharing personal data Identiq lets companies verify that new customers are who they claim to be based on digital references from other companies in its network. It has developed cryptographic tools to let companies confirm they’re talking about the same person without having to actually share any data with Identiq or even with each other, meaning fewer opportunities for data breaches or privacy violations. Because data comes from partner businesses’ own systems, it can essentially be kept permanently up to date. For the system to work, Identiq needs a critical mass of business, and a May 2020 virtual summit brought praise from companies like transportation booking company Gett, gift card and payment tech company Blackhawk Network, and international payment company PayU. 3. ZecOps For spotting the hacks that can cause apps to crash—on iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux ZecOps makes automated software that spots when apps crash on computers and phones, then tries to find out what went wrong
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The 10 most innovative security companies of 2021