Quantum key exchange @ Co. - Start-ups honoured with prizes for new security developments

The ATHENE Startup Award UP23@it-sa was presented live during the it-sa Expo&Congress and was endowed with prizes for the first time. Quantum cryptopgraphy is leading the way among the award winners: Winner Quantum Optics Jena, along with enclaive and mondoo, was able to win over the five finalists in the pitch.

Quantum Optics Jena came out on top at the sixth ATHENE Startup Award UP23@it-sa. The young company specialises in key exchange in quantum cryptography. However, the runners-up enclaive and mondoo also impressed with their exciting technological developments.

Attackers can draw on a wealth of technology when it comes to creating new attacks. IT security therefore urgently needs new methods and procedures. Research is in full swing, but a lot of time usually passes before the results of scientific research are translated into products.

However, development does not only take place in the field of science. Start-ups regularly come up with new ideas. The three best cybersecurity startups were once again honoured during this year's it-sa Expo&Congress in Nuremberg. The Startup Award was presented to applicants from the DACH region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) for the sixth time. An expert jury initially nominated five start-ups from a large number of applications, which qualified for the final round. From these, the top three places were finally awarded. This final round took place live during it-sa.

The first three places with prize money

mondoo took third place this year. The company, initiated by four founders, discovered that, apart from phishing, most successful hacks are caused by non-updated systems and misconfigurations. This is why mondoo has developed software that can recognise such problems. It doesn't matter whether the applications are running in the cloud or on-premise. It also doesn't matter whether they run on Windows or Linux. The mondoo software works with guidelines (policies) that can be defined in advance. In addition, security requirements and security catalogues such as ISO 27001 have been digitally mapped and can be incorporated into the policies. This makes it easier to implement them and generate reports for auditors at the same time.

Second place went to enclaive with a new security solution for the cloud. The two founders set out with the aim of making the cloud a secure place. To achieve this, they are expanding encryption: data is now not only stored or transported in encrypted form, but also remains encrypted during use. In doing so, enclaive follows the paradigm that the solution should be easy to understand, easy to use, easy to put into operation and easy to pass on. The last point concerns the continued use of the data under different conditions, such as a change of provider or technology. A special feature of the enclaive solution is that the crypto coprocessors of conventional CPUs are used for encryption. As a result, this process does not require a lot of computing power and should only lead to a one per cent loss in performance.

Victory for quantum technology

This year's winner of the ATHENE Startup Award UP23@it-sa is Quantum Optics Jena. The young company impressed the jury with its solution for quantum key distribution (QKD). QKD is considered an important building block for achieving long-term security. Quantum Optics Jena is a spin-off from the local Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering. With quantum entanglement, the Jena-based company has created a key generation and distribution system that is also suitable for multiple users simultaneously. In our interview, Kevin Füchsel, CEO of Quantum Optics Jena, explains the special features of this process.

For the first time, the top three winners will receive prize money from sponsors. The prize money for the winner from Jena is 5,000 euros, which was sponsored by Deutsche Telekom Security. Olaf Reimann from the Marketing and Communications department at Deutsche Telekom Security explains: "We live and work in a highly networked world that is developing rapidly. This world needs to be protected against threats that are also constantly changing. We are convinced that groundbreaking innovations and thus the innovative power of start-ups are needed to protect our digital future and strengthen the security of our networked world.