Q-Scout – Dana Waldman, Quokka

This is Textron TV. Hey everyone, welcome to another text on TV segment. I'm really happy to introduce you to a first-time guest here on Tech strong TV a company.

You may probably maybe have not heard of but they well you're gonna hear the whole story around this company in just a moment. Let me introduce you to Dana Waldman Danger's with a company called kwaka. Hey, Dana, welcome to text on TV.

Well, good morning. Thank you for having me Alan. It's a it's fun to be here actually.

I hope we I hope you say that afterward done. But I'm sure you will so Dana quokka. new name but it's a company that you know, some of us may have heard of before this.

Why don't you give us the scoop here? And while we're right away we might as well find out a little bit about you as well. Well, sure.

Thanks. Thanks for give me the chance to talk about kwaka because I'm obviously pretty excited here kwaka is actually been around a while and we were formally known as crypto wire, but we recently rebranded ourselves as we've started introducing a whole new platform and service but we're in the mobile cyber security space. So we're all about giving peace of mind to both users and Enterprises alike in the area of digital security and privacy.

That's kind of what kwaka is all about and much like kwaka. I started in the federal space as did kwaka. My career first was in the federal space focused on taking technologies that we're developed from the government sector and inserting them into the commercial sector where we could have a much broader benefit of users and that's exactly what we did with kwaka kwaka also started in the federal space.

It was initially funded by the government groups like DARPA and the Department of Homeland Security and others and we realized there's a huge opportunity to take what Doing and get into the emerging world of convergence of your digital work life and your digital personal life and give you a degree of privacy and protection and lower your risk without really intruding on your privacy. And that's really what Quakers all about. Excellent great great backtrack there Dana.

So look a lot of people talk about mobile security and we help with mobile security. Let's peel the onion back a few layers and really kind of if you don't mind dive into what quarker does. And how it does it.

Yeah, sure happy to happy to dive in you know, first of all, if you think about it more and more things are trending to the operating systems that run our mobile devices Android and iOS, but they're not just cell phones and tablets anymore. Lots of devices run Android and iOS things like your TV. If you have a Peloton bike your car all of these things more and more there's a convergence onto these operating systems to drive more and more things in your daily life and kwaka is all about providing what we call Proactive privacy protection.

That's a lot of peas in a row proactive privacy protection. And that's what we're putting at the Forefront of digital security and the whole idea with what we're trying to do at quokka less fear more peace of mind. Giving you much more confidence with a lot less worry.

So it's proactive digital security that makes you whether you're an Enterprise or an end user working at an Enterprise an organization or an employee make you feel safe and secure with what's going on in your digital life. And that's kind of a quack is all about okay. Is it an?

App on the phone is it? Some sort of stats thing. I mean, let's We have a fairly technical audience.

They want to know if I'd want to know so we're a SAS platform and we have been for some time. By the way clock is not a new company Quaker has been around over 10 years. We've developed a series of and engines and Technology Stacks in those engines all about searching out vulnerabilities providing protection before bad events happen and giving you the end user or you the Enterprise insight into those things before they happen so that you can proactively protect yourself so that those bad things don't actually happen.

That's kind of what we're all about. And we do as a SAS company. So are you scanning these devices for vulnerabilities then and then the learning to vulnerabilities is that yeah, there's a combination of things in there Alan.

We understand the AppSec that run on each device. We analyze each and every app. We make it digital twin in the cloud of the AppSec that are running.

Okay, and we add a layer of intelligence to take all those discrete pieces and information about each and every app that's running along with the operating system itself. And the unique instantiation of that device is operating system and sort of the hidden AppSec that make the operating system work. We had a layer of intelligence across all of that and that allows us to proactively tell you here are your wrist points.

Here's what you should do to eliminate those risks and the beauty of what we do is we do it all without needing access to your private data. So we're not looking at your personal data, and we're not sharing that data with anybody. Got it.

All right now now we get into the good stuff. So. So it seems like what you would Clark is able to do is to take your unique.

configuration and literally digital created digital twin And call it a Sandbox or whatever in in the cloud right and and say okay. Here's this configuration this unique configuration. We analyze they didn't here's where you have potential vulnerabilities.

And/or other, you know insecure kind of configs or whatever and this is what you need to do to fix it. That's exactly right and the beauty of it is we're able to do this in advance of something bad happening as opposed to waiting for something bad to happen. And then analyzing that we're able to do this ahead of time what we call proactively Yeah, I love it.

So. Look, I've been in security a long time. So, okay.

No, what do we you know the nature of the Beast today is that these devices configurations their app line up the versions of the AppSec. They run, you know, they're changing daily. If not minute by minute hour by hour.

How does quarkus stay up on? Latest changes and so forth right that whole thing takes place in our engine in the cloud all the time. It's running in the background so you can know with quokka that you have the latest information about exactly what's on your device and exactly where the threats are and that's kind of the beauty of what we do and it's a continuous process for us.

I love that. whether you're on the Enterprise or an individual they both use quarkle, but who's kind of the you know, the the target audience here? Yeah.

So our primary focus is protecting the Enterprise to enable BYOD. We want to enable Enterprises to allow the employees of the Enterprise to use their own devices and access corporate resources. So we have to balance the Enterprise wants to know it's protected as these as these various users and all these various devices are accessing their corporate resources as part of their daily interaction.

And at the same time we want to assure the employee think of them as the consumer that what's going on on their devices protected. So it's a little bit of both we help the Enterprise and we help the end users who are essentially consumers and that's why we have to deliver quota and develop Quaker with the consumer mindset a light touch friendly easy to use protection that can also help the Enterprise at the same time. I like it.

And you mentioned of course the sort of a government Heritage here is government still a big user base for quarkka. I yes the feds are big customers of ours actually as our a whole bunch of commercial customers, but we have a terrific presence in the FED dating back to the early days of the company the company that started in Academia actually and then funded by the feds, and now we have traction across, you know, almost every sector you can think of in the commercial Market. Great.

Another question for you, Daniel or another area. I'd like to touch on is you know? It used to be when we said mobile.

We spoke only about phones it was really phones. But today this tablets. There's there's all these kind of Quasi mobile.

Devices whether it's watches or or things if we can call it right connected things. What you know. I imagine quarken, you know primarily is also working on phones.

But what are the kinds of devices is Quaker, you know either working on now, or maybe you guys have plans. to work on in the future Yeah, you raise a really good point Alan if you really look at what's happening in sort of the macro Trends today. The trend is more and more towards lots of things that run the operating systems that used to be known just for mobile.

So it's almost a misnomer to call the mobile anymore. Right if you're running Android and iOS Then you're right up our alley because that's the DNA of kwaka and nowadays. You're absolutely right.

It's not just phones. It's not just tablets. It's your television.

It's the smart Appliance is in your house. It's your car which I guess is mobile. It's your stationary bike which feels mobile when I'm pedaling but I don't go anywhere.

It's all of those things you have that screen or not. But yeah, I get it. I mean, this is look we're doing you know, our annual virtual event called devops experiences November 16th.

And one of the areas we're exploring is we call the devops of things. Right because there's more connected. Well, there's a lot more connected things than there are people in the world today and that's growing exponentially, right?

They I think was was it 55 billion connected devices by Twenty twenty five or something like that. And a good percentage of them are running either Android or some Linux derivative versus, you know, something like that and and they all need protection. That's exactly right with the internet of things but the numbers go even higher and higher.

So this this trend is is happening. It's it's more than a trend. It's a reality and so being away against that becomes important and being able to do it in the right way with a light touch and protecting the user privacy.

We felt that was essential and that's part of why we branded the company the way we did. Actually we wanted to sort of send that message of protection without intrusion. Excellent.

I love it. You know what Dana we didn't tell but we Use the name clock but look anytime. You got a q you always got to worry about spelling right?

There's always you nearby but why don't you spell it out for our audience here so they can go check it out. Sure. io.

That I oh, correct. com. We like that I/O because that's what technology.

Oh a lot of people there. I mean that's you know, that's the trend today's to go IO just wondering like it's there. If you don't mind me ask you the name Quakers there at some sort of hidden meaning or where would that come from?

Yeah. Kwaka is a an animal found off off the coast of Western Australia actually and we felt the cue and the image associated with that was something we could build upon because we're all about let's fear and more peace of mind, right and let's worry and concern and more confidence and we felt this notion of kwaka help provide that actually and it was something we could build on and that's why we went with that branding. I like the name very cool that IO it's you you okay go check it out.

You know as Dana mentioned they do sell a lot to Enterprises. They have individual. Plans as well.

I assume and you know, if mobile security is important to all of us might be worth checking out Dana. I want to thank you for coming on texture on TV and you know as things continue to evolve your come back and keep us posted. Well, thanks on.

I appreciate it. And I will do that. I will come back and be fun to do it.

Absolutely, Dana. io here on texture on TV. We'll take a break now.

We'll be right back.