Company: Nuke From Orbit
CEO and Founder: James O’Sullivan
Website: https://nuke.app/
About Nuke From Orbit
When did you start?
Nuke from Orbit is a security service that offers a unique digital panic button. This feature, the first of its kind, limits the impact of a security breach when your smartphone is stolen. The service allows users to block access to multiple services and accounts simultaneously at the touch of a button.
I founded the business after my phone was stolen, and I was powerless to stop thieves from stealing thousands of pounds from my digital wallet. It seemed ridiculous that there wasn’t a one-and-done way of shutting everything down—not just bank cards and apps, but email, social media, and all the other services and subscriptions living on our phones.
What challenges have you overcome?
The success of Nuke From Orbit hinges on our networks. Without a robust network of partners, we can’t provide comprehensive coverage to customers.
Convincing partners, many of whom are huge organisations in highly regulated industries, is challenging. They are wary of anything that costs them time and money to implement or potentially increases their threat surface area. Our service doesn’t change their threat surface area and, therefore, reduces the risk of reputational and financial loss to both consumers and financial institutions.
There’s no monetary cost to them (although we need some of their time and expertise to make the integration work), and we’re not threatening their customers by existing. In fact, we require less sensitive data than Open Banking. We make it clear in all our conversations that our focus is on delivering a secure, quality user experience that doesn’t negatively impact our partners at all.
We also successfully raised funding in a downturn market, which, considering FinTech funding was at its lowest in 2023, was a ringing endorsement for our service. This funding has provided us with the runway necessary to develop the service further and expand our partner network.
What impact on the FinTech Industry has the company had?
Nuke From Orbit provides a new level of data protection and privacy for Fintechs and the broader financial services industry. With the rise of digital banking and the prevalence of security measures (One-Time Passwords, 2FA, etc.), smartphones increasingly act as the primary repositories for our Personal Identifiable Information (PII), leading to a swiftly escalating issue requiring resolution.
The introduction and rise of app verification for card payments has had such a profound impact on card-not-present fraud that criminals must look for other vulnerabilities to exploit. Criminals have returned to the ‘shoulder-surfing’ tricks that existed around ATMs for years, but now, rather than one card, they can access them all.
Before the Open Banking revolution, a start-up tackling this endemic problem in our society would have been prohibitively challenging. Now that third-party access to consumer banking through APIs has become more accessible, Nuke From Orbit is ready to make the required solution a reality.
We couple our protection for banking apps and cards with protection for SIMs, social media and email accounts to provide a holistic solution. If your smartphone gets stolen, you can immediately block access to all your accounts, preventing account compromise issues and monetary loss.
