CEO Today Global Awards

45 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today Global Awards 2019 united kingdom ZIA HAYAT CEO of Callsign 150 Cheapside, St Pauls, London, EC2V 6ET, UK Email: zia.hayat@callsign.com | Web: www.callsign.com ABOUT ZIA HAYAT Zia Hayat is the CEO & Founder of Callsign. The son of Pakistani immigrants, Zia grew up in Darwen, Northwest England and firmly believes that British technology businesses are disruptive enough to compete with their International peers and successfully break into the global market. Before founding Callsign Zia designed and delivered secure information systems in a career spanning BAE Systems, Accenture Consulting and Lloyds Banking Group. He holds an honours first Bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering & Computing from the University of Manchester, and a PhD for his thesis on Information Security in Ubiquitous Computing from the University of Southampton - scholarship from BAE Systems. With the proliferation of data breaches, advanced threats resulting in stolen user credentials, there is increasing pressure on companies of all sizes around the world to implement better authentication practices. In 2015 alone, cybercrime cost businesses $500 billion, and this is estimated to rise four times to $2 trillion in 2019. At the same time, companies want to minimise the friction that universal two-factor authentication introduces to the user experience. In response, Callsign developed a deep learning-based authentication platform called Intelligence Driven Authentication™ (IDA). It enables enterprises to select the most secure and least invasive authentication journey for each user in real-time, based on their risk profile and tendencies – in other words, it adapts the type of authentication to the situation virtually eliminating advanced threats such as spear phishing. The result is an experience that optimises for both security and usability. Callsign believe that simply guaranteeing someone is who they say they are should be a basic requirement for any solution. Today’s user expects more from technology, they are used to smart and seamless experiences and anything less causes people to abandon transactions or find other ways such as costly calls to helpdesks. By using all of the thousands of data points available such as typing or swiping techniques, location, face recognition, devices, and even passwords, Callsign provides a friction-free experience. Where abnormal behaviour is detected, Callsign then intelligently and in real time introduce further tests, avoiding a rules-based approach that can be replicated by the ‘bad guys’. Depending on the level of regulation or compliance, companies can choose different intelligent authentication journeys for high-risk users, or high-risk activities. The solution has one of the lowest false positive rates in the industry, and prevents breaches thanks to their malware detector. As a result, users can get on with their digital lives whilst businesses improve customer engagement, increase productivity and reduce the risk of fraud. FIRM PROFILE Founded in 2010, Callsign now has a team of over 100 employees, predominantly engineers. The company is based out of London, with additional teams in New York and Sydney, and has plans for further global expansion. In 2017, the firm raised $35m Series A investment led by global venture capital firm Accel and early-stage investor PTB Ventures. Allegis Capital and cybersecurity industry veteran David DeWalt’s NightDragon Security also participated in the round. Callsign has expectations to become the leading player in the industry by expanding their product offering and expanding broadly into a wide variety of sectors and countries. As well as banking, Callsign is already engaging with companies in insurance, eGaming, policing, media and those who run loyalty card programmes. The solution has one of the lowest false positive rates in the industry, and prevents breaches thanks to their malware detector. As a result, users can get on with their digital lives whilst businesses improve customer engagement, increase productivity and reduce the risk of fraud.