Q&A with DataSecTech
Data Security Technologies also known as DataSecTech was cofounded by Dr. Murat Kantarcioglu, professor at UT Dallas and Fahad Shaon, PhD, student at UT Dallas. DataSecTech helps secure the big data against cyber-attacks by providing a data firewall that controls access to sensitive data. We had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Murat Kantarcioglu and learn more about DataSecTech.
Dr Murat: Currently there are many big data systems out there that the companies are using and each one of them have different types of security and privacy protection techniques built in. But there is no single tool that tries to make these protections uniform across multiple different data silos and protect this big data. We would be the de facto service that can protect big data regardless of where they are stored.
Dr Murat: We plan to do a subscription-based service. We can also offer a cloud service to companies who use the existing cloud infrastructure. The subscription price may vary based on the number of installations, features etc. We also plan to add feature and regularly update our software
Dr Murat: Our customers are in multiple sectors. For example, in automotive industry they are collecting big data from different vehicles and smart cars. They also must deal with privacy and security issues. Similarly, in Telecom industry. Our focus is on companies that are worried about the compliance and security of the consumer. We are targeting mid and large-scale enterprises.
Dr Murat: Blue Talend and InMuta are our competitors. The main difference in our offering is that we have access control capabilities that not only deal with structured and relational data but also with unstructured data such as text. Furthermore, we have machine learning based intrusion detection built-in in our system.
Dr Murat: Our funding is close to a million dollars from National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation research grants. It’s given in phase 1 and 2. We finished the phase 1 and now we are doing the phase 2, and that would be enough for us to build the product. We have a prototype that proved feasible but now we are building our MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The phase 1 is 225k and the phase 2 is 750k. We will be making money based on out subscription service.
Dr Murat: We have completed the phase 1, which proved the feasibility of our product. Feasibility does not imply scalability at an enterprise level. We need to integrate with different systems. We have strong technical and research background. So, most of the things went as expected. We found that Business Development is hardest part.
Dr Murat: In the foreseeable future, our aim is to sell the product. We want to implement our software with customer systems and gather real data to train our systems better. It can help us in making the machine learning based intrusion detection better. Our plan is to get the pilot studies and raise seed money for the business development.