Startup City: Company Locks In Code, Locks Out Problems

An auditor is outside your door with a deceptively simple question: Is the software you provisioned to the finance department last week still in the same "gold" configuration? The wrong answer could land the CEO in jail. SignaCert aims to help you get it right.
--Andrew Conry-Murray SIGNACERT PRODUCT: SignaCert Enterprise Trust Server

FOUNDED: 2004

PRINCIPALS: Wyatt Starnes, founder and CEO; Amal Chaudhuri, president and COO

FUNDING: $10 million Series A

INVESTORS: DCM Capital Management, Garage Technology Ventures, Intel Capital, and SmartForest Ventures

CUSTOMERS: Financial services, telecommunications, high tech

WHY TAKE A CHANCE ON YOU? Companies need a systematic way to ensure that code remains in its authorized state, says SignaCert CEO Starnes, and the Enterprise Trust Server lets them manage more systems with greater uptime and fewer people. It's not like HP OpenView or IBM Tivoli, which take millions of dollars and weeks to roll out, he adds--"it's hours or days." BUSINESS MODEL SignaCert's Enterprise Trust Server ensures that only authorized software builds run on servers, PCs, and network devices. The 1U appliance creates a reference base using cryptographic hashes of gold images. Java clients deployed on endpoints scan for deviation, drift, and unauthorized software and report back to ETS. One appliance monitors up to 2,000 devices.IT shops can create their own baseline hashes, but SignaCert also maintains a database of hash values from major software vendors. OPPORTUNITY SignaCert targets industries such as financial services and telecommunications that feel the most pain from software-based outages, compliance violations, and security lapses. It aims to insert Enterprise Trust Server into existing IT management processes, rather than requiring IT to work around. Customers have best practices around application staging and standard image builds, Starnes says. "We tap in at the appropriate point for approved images and approved changes, so we're transparent to the business process." THE BRAINS Starnes founded Tripwire and ran it until 2004. President and COO Chaudhuri is Citigroup's former CIO. VP of engineering Frank Tycksen was research engineering manager in Intel's Trusted Platforms Lab. TIMELINE