CryptoMove

Nomination Highlights

CryptoMove is a new active defense data protection startup in Silicon Valley. CryptoMove’s innovative approach protects data with dynamic movement, distribution, mutation, and re-encryption.

Today’s data security relies on static encryption at-rest. But it’s easy for adversaries to hide, study, and plan attacks at leisure. Attackers have asymmetric advantages to steal cleartext, ciphertext, encryption keys, mount cryptographic attacks, destroy & ransomware data, or corrupt integrity. Examples include ProjectSauron, an APT that hit dozens major finance/government targets by studying encryption key servers. Further, quantum computers threaten to unravel all current encryption in a Y2K-style event.

Traditional encryption is equivalent to a lock or safety deposit box, guarded by cameras, walls, traps, guards. But attackers break locks, turn invisible to evade cameras, discover traps, go over/under walls, and there are not enough guards to keep up. The only guarantee with encryption is algorithms fail eventually.
New algorithms—postquantum, homomorphic computation on encrypted data, multi-party computation, secret sharing, or others yet to be invented—will require manual re-wiring of complex systems.

CryptoMove’s innovative approach makes data a constantly shifting and moving target. Attackers cannot identify data to mount cryptographic attacks. Time is a disadvantage, because data is constantly moving, fragmenting, mutating, and re-encrypting. Even if attackers identify, steal, or destroy data or keys, they have only worthless encrypted fragments or outdated keys. CryptoMove distributes redundant copies automatically and is resilient to attack or failure. Quantum computers don’t matter, because attackers can’t find encrypted data to brute force. Better yet, CryptoMove is agnostic to underlying encryption algorithms to plug-and-play new algorithms easily.

CryptoMove integrates any virtualized/containerized environment, upgrading encryption in clouds, datacenters, databases, edge/fog, even IoT devices. Conventional detection/prevention increases defenders’ work and heightens cyber-adversaries’ asymmetric advantages. CryptoMove’s active defense, however, increases attacker costs while reducing defenders’ workloads. This flips asymmetry — in favor of defense.