GREATER WASHINGTON INNOVATION AWARDS™ FINALIST Q&A

RunSafe Security
Cybersecurity Innovator of the Year Finalist
Joe Saunders, Founder and CEO, RunSafe Security

In your opinion, what makes a company innovative?
What makes a company innovative is the ability to advance a concept technologically while also creating a practical way to implement it.

What makes your company innovative?
At RunSafe, we set out to solve the problem that hackers have an economic advantage against defenders. We devised a way to disrupt hacker economics, saving our customers time and money while providing them with a level of security they didn’t have previously. We also analyzed how hackers operate and identified techniques they employ to obfuscate malware. Then we asked ourselves how we could use this knowledge to flip the equation and use the techniques to protect software from exploitation.

What or who are some of the innovative companies that inspire you and your team?
Elon Musk and SpaceX inspire us. He and his company have made a bold commitment to reduce the cost of space travel.  They’ve developed a way to reuse rocket boosters, pairing technological innovation with game changing implementation. Their breakthroughs are inspirational because SpaceX is redefining the economics of space travel in the same way that RunSafe is redefining the economics of cybersecurity.

What are some publications, print or digital, you read daily or have read that help you stay on top of your game? 
Security Affairs (www.securityaffairs.co), Krebs on Security (https://krebsonsecurity.com), The Hacker News (https://thehackernews.com), and The Cipher Brief (www.thecipherbrief.com). These help me stay up to date on recent advances in cybersecurity and software vulnerabilities, as well as providing a context for why these threats and risks are important.

What advice would you give up-and-coming leaders striving to be innovative in today’s business environment?
The advice I’d offer is that to be truly innovative, focus on enabling technology that can be practically deployed.

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