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July - 2008 - issue > STARTUP CITY
iViZ TECHNO SOLUTIONS
Jayakishore Bayadi
Wednesday, July 2, 2008


When Bikash Barai and Nilanjan De, two bright engineers from Indian Institute of Technology, Khargpur, decided to found a startup, they chose the security space. Incidentally, it was also their area of project work on Network Security and Simulation of Ethical Hackers. It was during this period that they found some critical shortcomings in the existing security solutions available in the market as they were using human intelligence to plan and strategize the attacks hence it was expert driven, time consuming and costly. They needed to do away with these deficiencies to be able to stand out. However, when they founded iViZ, a Network Security company in IIT Kharagpur in 2005, with a small sum of money raised from selling Bikash’s paintings and De’s research scholarship, initially they could offer only the same kind of solutions as their competitors did. “It was a crucial point in time and then we carried out years of research to bring in innovation and differentiation in our offering,” says Bikash Barai, CEO and Co-founder, iViZ.
Though Barai adds his touch of humour “You need to be a bit foolish to be an entrepreneur, he claims that today he runs world’s only on-demand Penetration Testing firm, with their offering, an automated system which can simulate or emulate the intelligence of an attacker, having the ability to identify the threats in a network and recommend solutions. This technology has been filed for patent in the U.S. Patent Office.

COMPETITORS
E&Y, TCS, HCL Comnet, Wipro, KPMG and PwC.

HEADCOUNT: 28

CUSTOMERS
The company has about 50 impressive customers like Reliance, TCS, Times Group, Web 18 Group, Persistent, National Stock Depository Limited (NSDL), International Credit Rating Agency, Indian Defense, and more.

HEADQUARTERS
Kolkata, India

PRODUCTS
APT- An on Demand Simulation of human hackers for proactive Security Risk Management through Automated Penetration Test (APT) technology.

PRINCIPALS
Co-founder and CEO—Bikash Barai
Co-founder and CTO—Nilanjan De
VP, Sales—Ravi Prakash
Bikash is a Double B.Tech degree holder from IIT, Kharagpur in Computer Science (Hons) and Architecture with a Masters in Computer Science and Information Technology. His core areas of research had been in the Simulation of a Hacker's mind using Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Hacking, Social Engineering and Attack Simulation. Nilanjan De is a B.Tech degree holder in Electronics and Communication from IIT, Kharagpur. His area of expertise is in Vulnerability Research and Exploitation Techniques, Network Security, and Kernel Security. Ravi’s career spans over 16 years in the Enterprise IT and Telecom industries. He was responsible for business development with global accounts in the semiconductor markets with Sasken in the APAC region. He had stints with companies like Global Edge, HCL, Xalted, and PCS

DIFFERENTIATOR
Competitors of iViZ do offer similar kind of security solutions, but they all use semi manual approach. Grippingly, iViZ provides the solution using its artificial intelligence based tool, which can simulate or emulate intelligent human hackers and detect all such attack paths which are otherwise not possible by manual approach as for a human it is impossible to determine all possible permutations and combinations of attack paths. It’s just like an automated brilliant human hacker, which can think like him. This automated mechanism can determine security threats in networks and systems more efficiently than top ‘human’ hackers and also can suggest a remedy. It can even penetrate your e-mail database! Hence, iViZ believes that they could be potential partners of their competitors as well as the iViZ technology can enable them to scale their business without increasing manpower.

They chose SaaS model because licensed product needed persons to operate and good penetration testers are rare breed. Also, solutions can be offered cost effectively. Customers can enjoy almost zilch Maintenance overhead, as they need not have to buy any expensive tools or maintain in-house security professionals for this.

BUSINESS MODEL
The Company earns from its flagship product APT service.

QUEUED UP
To build iViz as a global leader in the ‘penetration testing’ and ‘security testing’ arena that has a $2.5 billion market.

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