Woman's business protects computer security
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/16/2009
Suzanne Magee is in the business of keeping computers and data safe.
She started her company, Chesterfield-based TechGuard Security, nearly 10 years ago after learning of a new U.S. initiative to protect the nation's information infrastructure.
She started the company in the basement of her home but quickly outgrew that. She now has 50 employees, with offices in Illinois, Michigan and Maryland.
TechGuard specializes in firewall-type products that isolate computer systems and servers from harmful attacks, hackers and spammers. The company's most recent product is the Poliwall-Q, a device that acts as a filter between computer systems and the Internet. Among other things, the device allows its owner to eliminate all traffic from specific nations -- say North Korea or China -- with a click of a button.
In a time when cyber attacks seem to be growing in intensity, the device promises an extra layer of protection for financial organizations and government sites that are likely to be targeted.
And while TechGuard's customers primarily have been large companies and government agencies, the firm is increasingly targeting smaller businesses and soon may offer a scaled-down version of its Poliwall-Q for consumers.
What prompted you to build a company in this field? How did the Poliwall come about?
TechGuard was founded in direct response to Presidential Decision Directive 63 to secure the critical infrastructure of the United States and promote national cyber defense.
Under the Clinton administration, this directive came out with this realization that once we went paperless, that was going to introduce some vulnerabilities to our critical information.
The Poliwall came from an understanding that in the military environment, after 9/11, we really needed to join with our coalition partners around the world in the global war on terrorism. That meant information sharing that we had not done in the past... RELATED LINKS
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So we came up with this intuitive way to look at access to a network by nation of origin...We are more and more understanding that once we are connected to the Internet, we are connected to the world.
You started TechGuard in the basement of your home. Can you talk about the advantages and disadvantages?
First of all, we didn't have to make any sort of financial commitments or sign any contracts on a lease. We could start immediately. So you save initially on the capital outlay for getting an office space and signing that longer-term lease.
The disadvantage for us, and the reason we left our home office, is that initially we were going to do some development with Sun Microsystems.
They had development servers that would be available if you wanted to develop on their platform.
But they would not ship to a home office. So it precluded us from dealing with a customer with whom we were very interested in developing a relationship.
We've been hearing a lot about denial of service and other cyber attacks aimed at popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Do these sorts of events affect the demand for your company's services?
It brings incredible awareness to the fragility of our systems and how easily they can be flooded and taken down by these denial of service attacks.
TechGuard does a lot of business with the government and large corporations. Do you have any advice for smaller companies looking to court those same types of customers?
If you want to work for the government, in particular, then I would recommend you plan on at least two years of time and preparation.
And I recommend that you start by subcontracting to someone that is already working in the government space so you can learn how it's done.
It is a tremendous responsibility. You are taking, first of all, taxpayers money and there are a lot of regulations wrapped around that. There's a higher calling there of understanding and compliance. You will be audited if you work for the department of defense. It's not "if," it's "when."
What's happening in the world today that most concerns you from a cyber-security perspective?
I think the sophistication of the attacks, the increased amount of data breach and data leakage out of organizations due to ever-more challenging social engineering is of extreme concern. Unless we can push security in a usable form down into the hands of those who need to protect themselves, we're just going to be fighting a losing battle.
We know how to lock our cars and houses. We more and more need the education and tools for people to protect themselves from these sorts of predators. Now you have not only hackers who want bragging rights for breaking into your systems, you have nations whose gross domestic product can be in large part contributed to by hacking U.S. banks.
It is so easy to get in and get that money out of there electronically. This is big business globally. It's no longer just a bunch of hackers in their basements trying to do this.
