The company keeps track of unusual network activity

Feb 3, 2014 13:00 GMT  ·  By

It’s quite likely that you’ve never heard of Darktrace, but the company shows a lot of promise in the cyber security industry. So much promise, in fact, that the GCHQ Defense Chief, Andy France, has decided to lead it.

Upon seeing the technology that the startup had developed, France felt like he was looking at the invention of radar for cybersecurity, Quartz reports.

The company was created by Stephen Huxter, another British spook, an MI5 member. The technology that the firm used was built by a group of mathematicians at Cambridge University.

So far, Darktrace has been funded by Invoke Capital, a fund put together by Mike Lunch. The cyber security startup managed to become the first one to ever attract an investment from Invoke Capital, back in September.

Andy France believes that if an IT security employee says that the network he’s running is secure, everyone should know that’s a lie. “It’s impossible to do,” he states.

That’s why he believes that leaving the network relatively open and keeping an eye on things is the way to go, rather than try to wrap it in a bubble.

Unlike conventional information security measures, where networks try to block off access to individuals, Darktrace lets everyone in and looks for unusual activity. If an individual acts outside the norm, Darktrace will know. If someone tries to access parts of a network, Darktrace will know.

With that in mind, Andy France says that had the NSA had access to this technology, Snowden could have been caught ahead of time. That could have saved the NSA and the GCHQ the headache of having citizens of the world know how little their privacy meant.

There are certainly plenty of politicians out there and members of the intelligence community that are sorry they didn’t have access to such technology this time last year.