CyberShell Solutions is helping vulnerable small companies fortify their digital infrastructures against cyber attacks.

The proactive solution, CyberSuite, is said to have the potential to save these companies millions of pounds by stopping potentially devastating cyber attack before it happens. With the roll-out of its new technology the company has already started to attract attention from global companies.

CyberSuite is an early stage security analysis technology developed by company founder Tayyaba Nafees, a computing scientist who was turned her PhD into a commercially viable cybersecurity innovation.

The technology works by informing software developers of potential vulnerabilities in their IT systems at an early stage in the design process, allowing them to address and mitigate any issues before the software is commercially released.

Preventing Vulnerabilities At the Design Stage

Nafees said: “In 2017, seven out of ten organisations in the UK suffered a cyber-attack, which can have devastating and long-term financial consequences for a company. It can result in the loss of huge amounts of income or worse still allow the personal details of their customers to be stolen and exploited by cybercriminals.

“Many do now realise the issues around cybersecurity and are starting to look for solutions. The main challenge, however, is that the current approach is reactive. Rather than taking steps to prevent a cyber-attack before it happens, companies are responding to, and repairing, the effects of an attack after the event.

“What we provide with CyberShell is a first line defence – an innovative technique called Vulnerable Anti-Pattern, a software which identifies vulnerabilities at a very early stage, even before the development phase. Software developers are provided with a short, concise list of up to date best practice and what not to do. We then offer solutions on how best to eradicate the potential weaknesses in their systems.

“We are effectively bridging the gap between cybersecurity experts and the software engineers so we can develop secure software systems. The software market is so competitive at the moment, and this saves companies time and potentially a huge amount of money, as well as giving them confidence and peace of mind knowing that their company is secure.”

CyberShell Solutions Looking to Scale-Up

Having won several prestigious awards, Nafees is one of four people – and the only woman- to receive a Royal Society of Edinburgh Enterprise Fellowship 2018 worth £90,000 as well as a place on the UK Government’s Defence and Security Accelerator Programme and Cyber Bootcamp 101.

Aside from these accolades, she was also named one of this year’s 10 out of 200 young researchers participating in the 6th Heidelberg Laureate Forum. Still in the process of fully launching her business she plans to expand her commercial team to support the company to scale-up.

She is currently in talks with a software developer and an ethical hacker and plans to start interviewing for staff early next month with a view to hiring four people by the end of her first year.

“It is quite interesting because my first degree was in software engineering,” Nafees said. “I then won a scholarship to study cybersecurity at Abertay and they taught me ethical hacking. I realised during my studies that, while I am really quite good at making software, I was also pretty good at hacking into it.

“There are currently not too many women involved in cyber security entrepreneurship in Scotland, so to have got this far is such a short time is all very exciting. I am very much looking forward to getting going.”