"Show me another company that has two announcements like these on its web site. On the one hand, a call to users to do whatever they want on the computer, and on the other hand a promise of $500 in the event that the computer is infected by a virus or malicious code," says Israel Baharav, co-founder and CEO of Internet security company TrustWare Corp.. Baharav, a man with an impressive record as fighter pilot and entrepreneur, (this is the fifth high-tech company he has founded and managed), is now trying to turn the company into one of the most attractive security solutions on the market. To go by the dry data at least, this is feasible.
In general, these are good times for TrustWare. The company, which developed a security solution for running Internet applications in a virtual environment, finds itself in a market that is enjoying a revival. TrustWare was founded in 2003 by Baharav and Eyal Dotan, who serves as CTO and is in charge of the technical aspects of implementation. The idea to run applications coming from outside the company (through email, Internet surfing, peer-to-peer communications and other options) in a closed computer environment not connected directly to the operating system running on the computer, is a fairly old one. The concept is linked to a sandbox, meaning that it redirects all applications to an environment that simulates in full the activity of the operating system, PC applications, or enterprise network.
In this respect, TrustWare is similar to another company whose name surfaced recently - GreenBorder, which was acquired by Google in May. Both companies operate parallel to virus detectors and other programs designed to eliminate the various types of malware and Trojan horses, only they have an advantage - they don't need updating. "We realized a few years ago that there would be no avoiding the need to tackle unrecognizable file codes, what's known as the Zero Day Attack," says Baharav. "We realized that this threat would keep growing, and that companies would have to shut down in order to protect themselves. But the dilemma here is that although this will make a company's security tougher, it could prevent its employees from accessing applications such as web sites, IT installations, or email."
However, despite being an ideal solution, over the years, the sandbox did not deliver as promised. TrustWare's solution does not attempt to locate or delete the hostile code but instead, it lets it run, but in an environment that does not endanger the real operating system. After the application has finished running, any files created during the course of unauthorized activity in the virtual operating system are deleted, and the application can continue running, but in the isolated environment. In addition Google's interest, Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) has also been active in this field, with the announcement a month ago of a virtualization solution called the ZoneAlarm ForceField.
In its activity model, TrustWare has made the enterprise sector its main market. Additionally, it is targeting two more markets with its BufferZone program: Critical Systems Validation and the private market. The company says it has a number of customers in the critical systems market, such as Orbotech Ltd. (Nasdaq: ORBK). The private market, on the other hand, happened quite by chance, as Baharav recalls, "We had a positive foul-up. We wanted a quarter of a million home users, and it happened to us within just three months. As a result, we got a lot of feedback about the program, and after analyzing the responses we realized the home market is a good one." The company is said to be on the verge of reaching one million users of its software, and it has begun offering three types of product for private users, two of them for a fee.
TrustWare is currently owned by Baharav, Dotan, and a number of private investors who invested in it at the outset. Baharav says the company now needs to raise a further $500,000 in order to speed up its penetration of the market. According to him, it will probably not raise the money from venture capital funds, but from its existing investors. TrustWare's other joint CEO, Arie Dotan believes the company will soon have several partners who will market the product both in Israel and worldwide, bringing it "a steady stream of revenue." "If the company has revenue in the tens of thousands of dollars in revenue in the coming months, this will be a great success," adds Baharav.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on November 7, 2007
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