“We will be launching the device in US very soon,” Amit Mathur, Ensurity Technologies

Written By: Divya Bishi

Amit Mathur, Chief Operating Officer, Ensurity Technologies talks about his company profile and secured portable data.

What is the product portfolio of Ensurity Technologies?

We are a Hyderabad based company and we are into existence for the past eight years. We got some projects from the government at that point in time and they were looking at voice encryption. We made voice encryptors which could be connected to PSTN lines and the conversations could be encrypted. Our strength has been encryption from the beginning and as the world started moving towards data, we started working on data encryption.

We are a Research and Development company and kept on adding to our product portfolio from time to time. We created a hardware device called L4 crypt which is an IP encryption that is FPGA based and no back door. This was primarily used by Defence and other R&D organisations.

What are the unique features of the device?

We felt the demand for secured portable data and then we created a secure USB with a biometric sensor and it was a completely encrypted device. The unique feature of this device is that once it is locked onto a port by the user or one network it cannot be used by anyone on any other network or port.  Another product that we have developed is related to securing the privacy of voice and chat apps. At a time when Whatsapp became popular, we created an app that could encrypt the chat and the voice messages completely and is extremely secure.

It works in a closed user group. Each session is encrypted with a different key and if a hacker gets on a voice call or chat, then he has to decrypt each session which is very difficult. Then we have features like file tracking and locking so that a file forwarded can be tracked or users can restrict the receiver from forwarding the file.  The vapour feature can be programmed for automatic deletion by the user.

What will happen if someone tries to decrypt it?

A ThinC range of USB devices comes with biometric authentication. ThinC caters to the security needs of sectors like BFSI, large consultancy enterprises; or any entity or activity that is dependent on remote access. The ThinC devices are available in three variants with unique features that avoid data leakage and hacking at unprecedented levels.

1. ThinC Vault (with capacity up to 128 GB): This is the most secured shareable smart storage USB device with each user having his/her own pin-protected password.

2. ThinC Compute: This variant boots a sanitized OS from the USB and blocks all ports and the operating system of the home device and allows the user to log in to a remote server securely.

3. ThinCFIDO: This fast ID on-line (FIDO)-complaint variant will come with fingerprint password authentication. As the authentication happens only on the USB, the hacker will not be able to get to access the fingerprint template.

How safe is your device from other players?

Our device is activated by the user’s finger authentication. We have a special tool and the malware cannot detect our device. This device can be shared among 10 users and the storage partitions policies can be shared without access to others partitions. Partition policies between users can be defined as well.

This device can be locked onto ports and safely secures organizations’ data. The device also comes with a management tool and can be managed by the admin in terms of erasing or securing some of the data. An additional FIDO compliance is also assigned to this device.

This prevents the authentication process to take place in the browser or the laptop which removes the chances of malware or hacker’s attack.

How is Ensurity Technologies associated with the banking sector as well as ATM?

In India, we have about 8-9 major customers for our USB that are large banks. Today banks have over lakhs of 500 POS machines in the market and devices can be used to update software in the cost machines are affected. In order to update these terminals, a third party assigned by the bank with the software puts it in a USB device and then updates the POS machines. Generally, there is no insight on this person who is entitled the job of updating the software in the terminals, or the cleanliness of the USB device. With the help of our USB devices, there is a read-only software installed which cannot let the user temper the software and this is done by an authenticated person.

Even for ATM machine updation, our devices can be used. ATM manufacturers give the task of updating the cost machines to a third party who uploads the software to a pen drive and then update the terminals. Again there is no awareness on who comes and updates the ATMs or the security of the device carrying the software.