Entrepreneur Jon Miller's first foray into what would become his career in cybersecurity was attending hacker conventions at age 16. In high school, he was hired to do consulting work as a "penetration tester"—a role that involves testing a company’s security and then helping to fix the breach. Later, working as a hacker for Internet Security Systems, he met Ryan Smith, who was a vulnerability researcher at the firm: basically, prodding at systems like Windows to find out how the software could be exploited. Two years ago, the pair launched Halcyon, a ransomware defense software that helps companies prevent cyberattacks and equips them with defensive software, which is a novel development in cybersecurity tech.
That “offense to defense” strategy is exactly what Bob Ackerman looks for when he incubates and invests in early-stage cybersecurity startups with his firm, Allegis Cyber. Ackerman explained that he looks for founders that have spent their entire careers in cyber, and particularly have come out of the NSA or the Israeli equivalent, Unit 8200. “All of the innovation in cyber is actually paced by the offense,” he explained. “When you get to seed, there's no revenue, there's no product, and there's no customers, so you're really relying on [the founding team’s] domain expertise.”
