Ontario-made cybersecurity tech is securing vital data that's at rest, in use and in motion

CryptoMill’s breakthrough encryption technology is attracting admirers from international companies to government agencies

“Did you circle it?” It’s a phrase Nandini Jolly aims to become the norm in companies large and small all over the world.

Jolly is the founder, president and CEO of Toronto, Ontario-based CryptoMill Cybersecurity Solutions, whose latest offering is Circles of Trust, a breakthrough encryption solution.

Unlike other cybersecurity solutions that focus on network security, with Circles of Trust by CryptoMill, protection is bound to the data itself.

The circle is a metaphor for network safety: a company’s data remains encrypted and only accessible to those it trusts—those in the circle—and only on a need-to-know basis. Your safety network is both digital, and human.

Data protection solutions that build businesses and governments

No matter where it’s shared or stored, a company’s encrypted data is only circle-accessible. If someone without permission tries to access protected data by downloading it onto a separate USB or by using a different device, all they see is hopelessly garbled data.

Circles of Trust eliminates the risks associated with data leaks and breaches from hacker attacks, whether the data is at rest, in use or in motion—and it does it seamlessly, with no workflow disruption.

While companies like Microsoft have developed elements of its capabilities, CryptoMill’s Circles of Trust remains unique. Its fans—and clients—include companies like Hewlett-Packard (HP), Toshiba and Hitachi, as well as government agencies such as Statistics Canada and the Royal Canadian Navy. CryptoMill is also engaged in ongoing cyber work with NATO, U.S. Cyber Command and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), among others.

It’s an impressive achievement for a company that’s been in business less than a decade—and is headed by a woman who freely admits that when she started CryptoMill, she knew almost nothing about cybersecurity.

What Jolly did have was a background in finance, specifically international risk management, business contacts developed through senior positions at the Bank of America and Deloitte, a keen eye for people who think outside the box, including engineers and computer scientists—and a fair bit of boldness.

It was a proactive sales call that landed her first big client: HP.

“I called up a senior person at Hewlett-Packard, said I had a wonderful product to tell him about, and asked him for thirty minutes of his time,” she recalls.

She got it. A little over a year later, CryptoMill’s proprietary cybersecurity software was being bundled in 34 languages on HP desktops, laptops and tablets. More companies, including software giant OpenText, followed.

Toronto’s calling card is its diversity

Today, CryptoMill remains a small company. The staff counts just 30 “Cryptonites” (as Jolly calls them), including at least two co-op students at any given time recruited from local universities. It makes for a strong, close team where “everyone respects differences, values learning on the job and is hungry to have out-of-box experiences.”

Toronto, Ontario, is ranked as a Global City of the Future. It has proved to be the perfect location for the company—and for Jolly, the city’s unabashed ambassador.

“Toronto is so warm and welcoming,” enthuses Jolly, who has lived in many cities, courtesy of her diplomat parents. “You find people from such eclectic backgrounds here—including a bubbling, sizzling pool of highly qualified young people in every discipline—and that stimulates innovative thinking.”

Jolly also points out that whatever sector a business is in—be it finance, information technology, life sciences, food and beverage, fashion—it will find the expertise it needs in Toronto both from a resource and client point of view.

Rounding out Toronto’s attributes, Jolly says, is its network of support for entrepreneurs. There are dozens of organizations for women entrepreneurs alone.

“I can’t imagine working and living anywhere else,” she says. For Jolly, success is a journey, not a destination, and she’s only just begun.

Learn why Ontario is the perfect location for your cybersecurity business.