Meet Stephen Kines, COO And Co-Founder Of Goldilock

Tell us about Goldilock.

 

With the huge push for constant connectivity that we’ve seen in the last decade, a variety of new, more sophisticated cyber-threats have arisen. Hyperconnectivity from new technologies such as IoT, migration to the cloud, and emerging AI innovations have made more individuals, companies and governments prime targets for criminal activity and cyber threats.

With my co-founder, Tony Hasek, we saw the rise of cryptocurrency is our previous careers and it struck us how tiny pieces of information, worth so much money, were not being stored securely. There was something fundamentally wrong with these security measures. Two years down the line we’ve developed a product that puts unhackable physical air space between networks and the internet. Using what we call a ‘kill switch’, customers can completely disconnect their network remotely, without using the internet, giving control back to business owners and leaders.

What do you think makes this company unique?

 

Simplicity. Goldilock offers an easy-to-use yet incredibly powerful solution to rising cases of cybercrime. Physical network segmentation as a means of security is certainly a gap in the market, which is what makes our offering so niche. For us, air gapping is what two-factor authentication was five years ago: seemingly inconvenient at the moment, because a lot of users will be hesitant to resort to disconnection, but soon to be second nature for businesses in the coming years.

The reality is, particularly in the face of advanced emerging technologies like AI, physical isolation of systems will become the only real way to protect them from threats as sophisticated as this. Technologies like AI can only threaten a system that is online. Without an internet connection, AI cannot communicate with or control your systems, making it impossible for AI to be used to launch an attack. This is why, for companies that operate systems containing sensitive data, air gapping, or disconnecting from the internet, will become an essential security measure.

 

 

How has the company evolved over the last couple of years?

 

We’ve seen a great deal of growth in Goldilock in the last year. A year ago, we opened our new state-of-the-art headquarters in Wolverhampton. This has not only begun to fuel Goldilock’s wider community outreach programme to encourage greater diversity in cyber, but also acts as a hub for wider innovation in the future.
We also recently announced the appointment of Sir Chris Deverell, former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces, as Goldilock’s Strategic Advisor for Defence. Sir Chris truly understands and appreciates the importance of cybersecurity when it comes to national security and having him on board has helped Goldilock’s work in defence and national security space. Something that we hope to develop in the future.

In September this year, we also secured a 1.7 million USD seed round led by the Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater NY and New York Angels. We’ve taken this opportunity to focus on building our Security Vendor channel network and worldwide MSSP partner so it’s definitely been an exciting couple of years for us.

 

What can we hope to see from Goldilock in the future?

 

In the short term, our aim is to solve the greatest cyber security challenges faced by private businesses, military and defence organisation and critical national infrastructure. A lot of this comes down to providing peace of mind and giving control back to our customers. They know they can disconnect through a single text on their phone, and unlike other cybersecurity solutions, the decision isn’t made by a third party.

In the long term, we see a need at Goldilock to evolve past just being a hardware solution. We’re already working on developing our threat intelligence capabilities so we can better understand what the real threats our customers are facing and stay ahead of the curve. Put simply, we’re fully committed to understanding the new and evolving threats that are continuing to emerge to better protect our customers.