The Future of High-Speed Encryption | Post-Quantum Security Explained | Melissa Chambers - Sitehop

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: We are now live. Well, thank you for having a listen to this week's episode of Secure Insights with NDK Cyber. This week, very excited to be joined by Melissa, the, uh, CEO from SiteHub. Welcome.

Speaker A: Hello. Thank you. Thank you. Excited to do this.

Speaker B: And me. And me. So I guess just before we get into the whole topic of conversation, Quantum and all that kind of good stuff, are you okay to give us a brief background on yourself, your background, and what got you to where you are?

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I could definitely do that. Uh, I'll try to keep it short and abridged. Um, I'm an engineer. Um, I love being an engineer. Did a math degree, I got to work at NASA. Um, but I've spent most of my career in telecom, so doing, um, RF conditioning systems for wireless or wireless infrastructure. Um, and that's what led me to meet my co founder. So during the pandemic, we both met at a, at a different, um, fixed wireless access company. But yeah, yeah, master grade. Love it. I'm painter too. Like, I love to do that in my spare time.

Speaker B: Very nice, Very nice. And so you touched on the. How you met your, your co founder's story there, and I don't think you did it justice. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull you up on this. There's. There's a pub story here, right?

Speaker A: There's. For any good British company, there's a pub story.

Speaker B: So the tagline.

Speaker A: Yeah, so our, our pub story is, um, so. So we met during the pandemic and we couldn't go out. And then finally they opened the pubs, but it was. You could only meet. Sit on the benches outside. So we went and we went and sat on the bench outside and had, um, our pints and we were talking about, we got around talking about like, hey, so what did you do during the first lockdown? And, um, in swapping stories, and he said, he just kind of casually said, oh, I created this prototype because, you know, based off his background, he's like, I knew there was a better way to do this. It could be done smarter, it could be more efficient. And. And then he said things like encryption and ultra low latency. And I was like, m, that's interesting because my background in telecom is that, um, especially 5G ultra low latency is one of the pillars. So I knew that that was critical. But I also know that encryption slows down systems. So immediately I'm like, I'm putting the pieces together with like, that's a business. So I've done startups Tech startups before. And when he was describing, I was like, that's a business like that. There is a need in the market for that. And, um. And depending on how much time I have to tell the story of like. And then the clouds parted and the sun shone down and it was like. It was. Oh, we heard angels. Because that was the start of Zeit Hop, that conversation at the pub during. Well, at the end of the pandemic.

Speaker B: Wow. What are the odds of that happening? I'd love to know the actual odds of two human beings that have kind of this similar sort of thought track, but didn't know they were to be doing this. Like, that's insane.

Speaker A: It's. It what? Serendipity, right? It's like, isn't that like any kind of relationship? Not just startups, but it's the, you know, you have two people that click, that work well together, and then you're like, hey, we've got a. We've got a common thread here. Like, what are we going to do with it? So could we. We could start a company. We could date. We could, you know, it's the. There's, you know. Yeah, it's just. It's life.

Speaker B: You got take.

Speaker A: Take every opportunity you can.

Speaker B: Love that. I love that. And I guess it seems to be that there was maybe like a shared mindset of let's not just accept things what they are. We could do this better, faster. We can.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it's the, uh, if you're passionate about what you're doing, I mean, everybody, everybody, nobody wants to go to work and be like, I'm just doing this thing again. And like, people want to be inspired. Right. They want to have passion for what they're doing. And, um, so him being able to say, there's a smarter way to do it, you know, there was a passion for that. Like, let's do it. Like, we can do that. Why any. You know, what's stopping us? Like, let's. Let's just do it. So that's, um. Yeah, it's fun. And building the team around it and growing and realizing that. Yeah. Oh, you know what, that. Confirming, um, our thesis that there is a problem in the market, that this does. The solution does solve a problem, you know, and getting that validation is just more fuel to the passion of, like, wow, let's just keep going. We can do so much more.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's awesome. And I guess just one last question on like, the kind of, the, the sort of the meeting story, if you, like, what was it like? Kind of putting together this is what the business could look like right in the middle of that whole COVID lockdown period. Because there was a, there was so much uncertainty from, from memory.

Speaker A: Um, well for me it was um, I think I was just born an entrepreneur. So for me it was like another day from my mentality. It was like, there's a problem, we can solve that. How are we going to do it? How are we going to structure it? Um, I mean we did, um, because there was still, there were still some lockdown effects when we actually start. So it was January of 2022 when we started and he worked out of his loft and I worked out of the, my living room. Um, you know, and we just, you know, teams or um, you know, virtual meetings across to each other and every now and then met in person. But yeah, it was just, yeah, we're gonna do it. We're gonna solve a problem.

Speaker B: Take a bull by the horns. Love that. Okay, cool. So getting into I guess the problem we're solving then in fact one step before that. For those that aren't too familiar, what is the whole quantum space movement thing? Is that the right way to word it? I'm not sure.

Speaker A: Um, yeah. So we are just for everybody's um, knowledge. So we provide post quantum encryption. We do more than that, but everybody's interested about quantum, so we'll frame it a little bit. Um, but I will preface that when we started in 22, we knew we were doing encryption. We knew that post quantum cryptography needed to come because quantum computers were um, going to threaten today's encryption systems. But, but then as early as 2022 all of the research was saying quantum computers aren't going to come around. It's going to be another 20 years, 30 years. Like it's not imminent. Yes, it's in the future. Yes, you should try to think about it say. But in business plan and pitch deck, it was, it was almost a footnote. Quantum computers was almost like a little footnote that has sped up so fast. Um, so in the last, um, just really year and a half, Google, Microsoft, like they, like IBM, have come out with quantum chips. Like the, the investment in quantum computers has really started to speed up because they're, they're crossing some barriers. The limitations, um, to quantum mechanics and all of the complication of that um, is speeding up. So quantum computers, I'm not a quantum expert, but I, I know enough. So basically quantum computers are different from a classical computer. So today's CPUs and the computers that we all use um, compute things with zeros and ones. Right. Very binary quantum computers can do, evaluate. It's basically if you take a coin is a head or tail, it's a 01, right? It's, it's black and white. A quantum computer can compute things. So if you take that coin and you flip it in the air and all those variations get calculated at the same time. So imagine the kind of problems that a quantum computer can solve and it's fantastic and amazing and I think if I ever went, if I went back to school, I'd probably study that because I think it's so fascinating. But the, the key thing for our industry and where we are is a quantum computer can crack encryption incredibly fast. So when we started we said, okay, AES, uh, 256, which is a kind of encryption, um, cryptography solution. It'll take the world's largest computers a million years to crack that. It's very, it's deemed secure, absolutely secure. When you introduce a quantum computer, that changes to an hour. So quantum computer could crack that encryption in an hour. So you can see now, now we've got like an existential problem. What about all of the encryption that's deployed globally? What about our security? How is that going to affect that? So it's like for us, I, uh, love it. It's great. It means the timing of our, our security company, our encryption company, and the performance that we could do it is the right time because now there's this threat, there's a massive driver globally, you know, so companies are going to have to say, large infrastructure companies are having to take a real deep look at like, where do we have encryption? Is it secure? What level? How are we going to get it to be quantum ready so that we can be secure? So it's like this. Sorry if I, if I'm covering too much, but.

Speaker B: No, not at all. Not at all.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's um. So yeah. So what direction would you like to go?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's, I find the quantum space sort of fascinating. And like, like you say a few years ago it was very much. That's, yeah, so many years in advance. Don't worry about that now. We've got these problems of today to solve. And then like you say, it's just, it's headlines and there's more investment coming in, niche players, plus your bigger, uh, IBMs, as you mentioned. But there also seems to be, you know, nation states. There's that element or sort of storyline of whoever gets the first quantum computer first and the whole subject around harvest now Decrypt later is a growing sort of concern for a lot of people. So in fact, what's your take on the whole harvest now decrypt later piece?

Speaker A: And you actually, you brought something up. It's like nation states. So large companies like Microsoft and IBM are obviously letting the market let everybody know the progress they're making. But if China for example, had a quantum computer right now and could decrypt all of the messages that they harvest, are they going to tell us? Um, are we going to know? Do, do we know? Probably not. I mean, and I'm just, I just threw out China as an example. But any nation state it is, it is likely. I, I would bet that somebody can do some of it now already. They're just not letting us know. So, so harvest now decrypt later is, is the, it's kind of the tagline. It's, it's the biggest. Pay attention to this because imagine all the data that's out there, right? All the data that's flowing around, somebody's going to harvest. So they tap into it, they figure out how your password, whatever, and they're just going to take as much data as they can. It could be encrypted today and secure today. Right? But they're going to harvest it, they're going to store it, they're going to keep it. And when they have a quantum M computer, then they can say now I can decrypt all of that really fast and I can use my AI tools and AI agents to analyze that data and give me information. Right, and to make decisions and to, you know, use it to their advantage. So it's that I'm going to harvest it now, I'm going to wait till I have a quantum computer and I'm going to decrypt it later. So that's that. At what point do companies need to say we need to start being post quantum ready now. Right. To protect from that scenario so broadly

Speaker B: terrifying, the whole harvest now piece, let's get into some more brighter news. Uh, so you mentioned around you SCI Hop at its inception was, was not sort of super, uh, quantum in mind, but, but now it's playing right into what you do. So how does siteop fit into this whole equation here?

Speaker A: Um, yeah, so the spark of the conversation was it was around latency. So latency is the time it takes to do something, right? So if you figure, um, so we do site to site security, so we do um, encryption for data in motion. And it was this motion actually that caused us to call ourselves site Hop because we do. What do we do? Well, we do site to site security.

Speaker B: I see. I was wondering where the name came from. Okay, cool.

Speaker A: So that's where the name came from. So we, we, we hop around from site to site and so what do we do? So we encrypt that data. Okay. People, uh, companies use software to do that now. Okay, what's the problem? The problem is, is that there's a heavy um, load on the network. Software has many layers. Right. And so what happens is the software encryption becomes a bottleneck. And so now suppliers, infrastructure providers can't move as much data as quickly as they want. Latency becomes a problem. So let's take the scenario of driverless cars. Let's say you've got a network, we need to secure the data because you don't want somebody to hack in and tell the car to go run off a bridge. Right. So it needs to be secure, but it needs to be really fast because that communication to the network that says we're telling the driver, this driverless car, where to go, it's important, it's time critical. So if you kind of think of that scenario, it needs to be really secure. Well if it's done in software and the network is slowing down, that's a problem. So that's just one random example. There's lots of examples of real time systems. That latency is important. So we said, okay, we can solve that problem. Um, and we solve that problem by doing it. I don't know if I should get into like right now how we do it, but basically we solve that problem doing it, the encryption and hardware. So it, so initially it was like um, solving the latency problem. But lots of other things have, have evolved and happened. It's actually, it's more robust, it's more secure, we've built it. So it's easier to use, it's easier to implement, it's easier to roll out to, you know, and it's, it's now it's evolved into like a whole system of being able to solve that. So that initial speed, so really high throughput data fast. And today like it's, I love saying like we've got the fastest encryption system in the world and we've got data to prove it. And I challenge anybody to show me something that's faster.

Speaker B: Hell of a gauntlet to throw down. Love that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm confident about it. And it's that I'm just, I'm really proud of the team. So it was like, it was Ben's brainchild But it was actually the team that we've built that have hit all these other things. So it's just like encryption was the spark, but. But it does so much more now. Like, it really solves a problem that ticks a box for CISOs. Right. So security officers have to say, I need to make sure my system is secure. Um, and this helps to do that. And we can, we can get into like, future proofing and quantum and, and how that loops into to what we've deployed. But actually say the CISO in the company says to the network team, I need you to add more security. Because the board and my investors are saying, protect our system. Right? This is our ip, this is our livelihood, this is our business. Lock everything down. But the people who have to implement it are saying, hold on a minute, you're making me add all this software, you're making me put all this layers on. It's slowing everything down. Hitting my metrics. I'm not getting enough data through the network and hitting the metrics. I need to, to look good to my boss and to get my raise. And. Right. So it's like, so we solve that problem. We allow, um, those network providers, you know, infrastructure, the next gen, the people deploying and coming up with like, how do we optimize our systems? We give them a tool to satisfy what they need for security, but not at the detriment of the throughput of the system.

Speaker B: So previously you'd have that kind of trade off of, if you turn up encryption, fine, but you're going to increase latency and then that creates and lower

Speaker A: throughput because it becomes a bottleneck.

Speaker B: Yeah. Ah. Which to your point there, creates that tension between, okay, if I'm a ciso, I need to make sure I have my bases covered, but then the network architecture team is going to hate me because of this. And it's like, yeah, where do we go from there? I guess.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker B: We go to Site Hub, definitely is the pitch. Um, who is this important for then? Is it enterprises? Obviously. But is there like a particular subset within there that would benefit from something like this more than us?

Speaker A: We started with the telecom infrastructure, which led to, like, data centers in the backbone of distributed networks. Because that's what I knew. That was where my background was. Ben's background is government. There is definitely, um, a government play here. So hardware security is definitely more secure than software. So there's applications there. Um, but we very quickly found that, um, the infrastructure providers, um, so the financial services, banks, financial services, trading, um, this is a High priority for them. I mean if you think about. So we want to protect our data. What, what's precious to everybody? Well, our finances, our money. Like if, if that's not secure, lots of things start to fall apart. So that industry is heavily regulated. They are having to pay attention to it quicker probably than anyone else. So they need to solve it first. If you think about harvest now, decrypt later, financial services are mandated where they have to hold data for seven years. Well if a quantum computer is going to come on in four, obviously they're already behind. Right. If they've got data and it's been harvested, it's, it's already in jeopardy. So, so they're going to be the first movers. Um, what we're seeing is to, to move and switch over to post quantum cryptography. Um, but so definitely we started with Telco because that's what we knew and there, there is um, an opportunity there. We're, we're seeing lots of use cases there. Financial services. Yes. Government, um, and critical national infrastructure. So unfortunately the, the war in Ukraine has shown us that, you know, um, it's, it's, there's a lot of digital warfare going on and attacking critical systems and is one way to cripple a country. Right. So they're vulnerable because they're legacy systems, they're old. So how do you bring them up to speed? So there's a use case for that. And if you think about it, um, there are some latency issues in those deployments and scenarios too. So yeah, so those are the first ones that we're focusing on. But there's a lot. Think about retail. There's been a lot of um, hacks um, in the retail space and it's all infrastructure and you know, networking and data in motion and people going online to buy things and the systems behind that to secure it. But yet the retailer wants to make sure that the end user has a fast experience. So they need to be careful about adding security. They need to add security. Right. Because there's already been breaches. But how do they do it in a way that does it back the end user? Because if the end user feels it, they're going to move to a different site. Right. So it's this constant of like how do I tick the security box but in a way that doesn't affect my business.

Speaker B: Yes, that is a, uh, a fine, fine line to tread. And I guess it kind of circles back to, you know, they talk about insecurity a lot being, you know, a business enabler, whereas if you've got something that does provide the security but also has ultra low latency and everything, then it seems to be ticking. That enabler box from the outside in.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: With the hardware piece, I was going to ask you around this. Is that kind of a point of um, your customers and your prospective customers, do they question that whole hardware piece? Is it, aren't we all SaaS now? Why are we going back to hardware?

Speaker A: Exactly. And there's a huge education piece, um, that will happen because of that and that we're doing and we're having those conversations. Um, there is, there is a question, although the network architects don't genuinely ask because they, they're feeling, they feel the pain. Uh, yeah, but, but so it depends on the level that you're talking to. Um, there's always going to be a place for software encryption, right? There's, it's, you know, so, so there will be a hardware and software just like there will be quantum computers aren't going to replace classical computers. There's always a place for both. But it's what's the application. So when, when do you pull the trigger for hardware? So in the conversations that we're having is like you've got very high throughput latency matters if you're regulated, um, in that uh, you have to guarantee. So, so understanding exactly what's happening on a chip is much easier than a multi layered software platform that has many injection points that could be breached. Right. This is an example of hardware being more secure, um, but also like that future proof aspect of it. So this is where our solution um, really shines. So we use something called an FPGA field programmable gate array. So it's like how do you deliver the hardware performance um, versus software? Right. There's a place for software, but let's look at the applications where a lot of data latency matters, performance matters because otherwise it's crippling our systems. We're not delivering as much data to our customers as we need to. This is where we would come in. We've been asked like, why, why wouldn't you use an asic? So there's different kind of chips out there. So an ASIC is much cheaper. They can, they can run um, faster. But once you've produced an asic, it can't change, right? It's it, that's, that's done. So, all right, so I need, I need a fast system, I need to be cheap, I need to be fast. Let's use an asic. Okay, let's deploy all of that globally because I have a global network. What happens when the quantum computers come along? And guess what? The post quantum cryptography that was deemed safe has now been cracked. We now have to go and pull. We have to rip and replace all that hardware we've deployed because we used an asic. And this is where our solution, um, is ideal because it's future proofed, because we can reprogram in a very secure way without having to physically be at every device. Um, that hardware that's in the field, um, it kind of future proofs. So does that make sense? You mean to give another example?

Speaker B: Yeah. No, I believe so. It's able to change and I guess from a business perspective I kind of get it. Let's use the cheaper option. We've got years left. Let's worry about that later. But it's of course going to be infinitely more expensive to do the rip and replace.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Than it would ever have been to, to do this in the first place.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you have to look at the return on investment. So and so it's not just, um, yeah, it might be a little bit cheaper initially to deploy, but what happens, you know, some of those systems are very complicated. So we've streamlined the deployment scenario, we've streamlined, um, how it is to set it up actually. In fact, I'll tell you the story because I love telling the story. Um, we've abstracted all the complexity of setting up all of these tunnels and secure tunnels and how to do it and you know, other systems, people have to go through a lot of training to figure out they have to be physically there to do it. Um, our first Tier one Telco customer, right before we signed that deal, they had representatives from around the world on, on a video call and we did a live demo for them and we had cameras set up. And because we wanted to make sure that it wasn't, they knew it was live. Right. And we said, look, we're toggling it on and off. We had the camera showing the lights going on and off and we're like, like we're doing it live, right? Yeah, live. Live setup. And we walked him through. Now we're setting up this mesh link. This is how we're doing it. Walked him through it and we said, okay, any questions? And then somebody turned on their mic and they said, um, you didn't show us how to, to set the tunnels up. And like you didn't like, where was that? And somebody, before we can even answer, somebody else turned on their mic and said that's when they pushed that button.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker A: It was like, it was that simple. It was like so we've made it incredibly simple. So it's um. And everybody just was like that. That's amazing. That's just unbelievable. It's insane that you've just made it that simple. So what we're so proud and excited about our solution because we can solve that throughput, latency, future proofing, delivering hardware performance, making it incredibly easy to use. But like having that peace of mind knowing that if the uh, post quantum cryptography algorithm that's on that chip needs to change, we've got it, we've got it under control. Right. So we've got. I haven't explained. So we've talked a lot. We always talk about focus on the hardware, um, that's performing the encryption. But we also have a cloud based management system. It could be on prem as well and more secure environments. But so it's cloud based for ease of use. So that we kind of, we say that our solution is easy as 1, 2, 3. So number one, what, what's the throughput you need? And do you want classical or post quantum cryptography? Great. Okay. That tells us what equipment you need which by the way sits next to the firewall, the router, the switch. Right, so that we sit at the edge of the network. So, so what do you need first? Great. We'll ship you the equipment. It arrives at your location, you just take it out of the box, you know, put it on the rack, plug it in, turn it on. That's it, that's all you have to do. And then step three is you use this cloud based management system. So somewhere else in the world. So our first deployment was uh, global and then somewhere else in the world they logged into the management system and said okay, this site can talk to that site, this talk to that site. They said configure all the permissions and they monitor the health of the network and in another location. So it's like we've just solved a complicated problem and made it incredibly simple.

Speaker B: Wow, that does sound alarmingly simple, I must say.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's amazing and it's exciting. So from an engineering standpoint and uh, a business owner and look at what we're building is we. And also how do you stand out as a startup? Right? You find a difficult problem and you kick its ass, right? You say uh, we can solve that. So here's a complicated problem. Encryption is computationally heavy. It's a complicated problem, especially when you need high performing. So we've Done that out of the gate. It's amazing. We're outperforming the products that are in the market and we have lots of third party validation, um, other people testing it, ah, against their current networks and showing that not only do we have the lowest latency, it's resilient. We don't drop packets. You know, there's other, so there's software solutions. If you put it under heavy load, they start dropping packets. So now it's not resilient anymore. Right. Whereas we are rock solid. Right. And so, so as when you're building a company and you've got that validation, you're like, uh, yes, yes, yes, this is exciting. We're doing this. What are we going to do next? Like how are we going to build on this? How do we get this in people's hands?

Speaker B: This is so cool. So it just seems like this whole element of look, problem X is here. Okay, We've solved that. Uh, not only have we solved it, but you haven't got to choose now between performance or security. And here's the kicker, all that quantum stuff that's making the headlines, like, we can sort you out there as well.

Speaker A: Don't even worry about it. Don't even worry.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's cool.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, it's funny because you literally just said something that in the marketing team were like, you know, how, how do we just market? You don't have to choose. Do you need this? Do you need this? Do you need this? Do you need this? Guess what? With site hop, you don't have to choose. You can have it all.

Speaker B: That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Uh, so what's looking ahead then? What's next? I know it's been a hell of a ride so far, but what's kind of the next 12 months looking like if we can even go that far? Three months, maybe six.

Speaker A: So, um, oh God, there's so. There's so many things that we want to do and directions we can go. Um, it's exciting that, that people are coming to us, um, and saying, we have this problem, can you solve it? And yes, ab, uh, absolutely, we can solve it. So it's, this year is all about getting to market, making sure that people know that the solution exists. Um, because one thing we keep hearing over and over again, so we'll go to a customer, we'll get in front of their, um, networking team or security team, um, we present our solution and they say you can see when the light goes on. Right? Because the way we do it is a little bit differently, um, in that it gives them more options. They can configure their networks in new ways and when the light goes on they go, oh my God, what you're saying is this, you mean I can do this? You mean I can do this? And then they get on the whiteboard and they start drawing it out and they go now, now we can add resiliency here and oh, I can replace MPLS here or I can add a um, you know, redundancy this way. That means I can add more customers and that. So, so not only are we adding security to the network and we're ticking that box, but not. But because of the performance they're able to optimize their network. So that's really exciting. It's exciting for our customer because now they, they have new options. Exciting for us because we're getting more and more validation that we're solving real problems that are out there. So this year is going to be about getting that message out more and more and more and getting in front of people because if they don't know we exist and they don't know that there's a solution to the problem, they're still doing workarounds like okay, we'll design the system this way and we have to add this and we'll route the traffic this way because we can't. Either we can't add encryption or we have to add this kind of encryption which slows things down. So it's all about um, getting the message out, like letting people know that we can solve that problem.

Speaker B: That's awesome. I guess you don't know what you don't know until uh, you come knocking.

Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.

Speaker B: That's awesome. It sounds like it's going to be an exponential curve here of growth and uh, very, very excited for you. I know we touched on a, to a thousand things there. Thank you for fielding all the questions there. Um, but yeah it was, it was great to chat, right. To uh, share some stories. The pub one is, is brilliant. That will forever be in my mind as uh, one of the best founding stories going I think.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that wasn't the most dramatic version that I've told. I think I was in person at um, a software team and um, event and I, for some reason I was, I really animated it. But you got a little bit of the tone down version.

Speaker B: That's quite all right. I think uh, a VC company told me, I think middle of last year they were saying uh, the better your storytelling capability, the better chances the company's got and all this kind of stuff. So amp it up. The heaven's over. Uh, the sun shone. Angel sun. Why not?

Speaker A: That's right. That's right.

Speaker B: Well, Melissa, thank you for coming on and sharing all this. Excited to share. And we'll be in touch soon.

Speaker A: Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Take care. Bye.

Speaker A: Bye.