The Russian invasion of Ukraine has put a Fort Myers-based business on guard. Not on guard against attacks of the physical kind but of the cyber kind.
Cigent, a cybersecurity company with offices off Widman Way in Fort Myers, just across from the Fort Myers Police Department, recently launched a second company. Blueshift Cyber aims to help small- and mid-size businesses protect their data from cyberattacks. Blueshift raised $6 million in startup capital last year, prior to launching. Cigent raised about $7.6 million in startup capital one year prior.
Cigent makes the equipment such as hard drives and software to prevent and counter attacks.
Blueshift Cyber provides the services for national and regional clients to use that equipment.
“We’re constantly monitoring for threats,” said Greg Scasny, chief technology officer for Cigent and Blueshift Cyber. “When the Russians started amassing troops around the Ukrainian border, we started seeing spikes in reconnaissance activity.”
By that, Scasny meant his company’s cyberattack monitoring systems were lit up with warning signs. “We track who’s trying to connect with malicious stuff,” Scasny said. “We track that all the time. We look for trends. You never know who it is. But from my standpoint, I don’t really care. My goal is keeping my customers safe.”
FineMark National Bank & Trust and Hope Healthcare are just two of Cigent and Blueshift Cyber’s many clients based in Southwest Florida.
“We started with them before they were even Cigent,” said Jason Manwell, the internet technology manager for FineMark. Maxwell met Scasny through mutual friends about seven years ago. “It didn’t take much for me to understand his level of knowledge and expertise in that industry. It was a no-brainer to partner with them. Once they came out with the Cigent products, we jumped on board. It just made sense. They keep going in a really good direction.”
Scasny wanted to educate his clients and the public the difference between ransomware attacks and cyberwar attacks.
“A ransomware attack is only done by people looking to make money,” Scasny said. “The attackers are looking to hurt or steal your data. And then they blackmail you so that you can get it back.”
That’s not the case with cyberwarfare.
“A nation state doesn’t care about extorting money from companies,” Scasny said. “In war, the goal is destruction. If a nation state wants to attack, they’re just looking to destroy.”
Scasny brought up the “kill chain,” a war term that also applies to cyberwarfare: figuring out what happened, deciding how to respond and then carrying out the response.
“If you can break any step of that chain, you can stop the attack,” Scasny said. “If you’re not taking your cyber defenses seriously, and you’re being attacked, you’re not getting the data back if there’s a successful attack. The best thing we can do is heighten our defenses. The best thing we can do is detect and respond to things very quickly. The best defense is to be very vigilant.”
