B2B Security Provider nsKnox Wins US Patent

The B2B fraud prevention and security company nsKnox says it has been awarded a U.S. patent for its CCS (Cooperative Cyber Security) technology.

“The technology underlines the company’s solutions for B2B payment security and provides a cyber-grade external security layer ensuring no single point of failure when protecting incoming & outgoing payments throughout the fund transfer journey,” the company said in a news release Tuesday (Jan. 11).

Using CCS, the company’s PaymentKnox suite offers clients global account ownership validation, tamper-proof master data protection and secure payment transactions. CCS keeps data secure by “shredding it into meaningless pieces,” nsKnox said, then storing these pieces in separate, independent secure networks and servers.

“The technology leverages various mathematical concepts to ensure Knoxers are blind to the information they hold, data is highly available and quantum-safe,” the company said.

Read more: Work-From-Home Trend Raises Stakes in Fight Against Business Email Fraud

PYMNTS spoke to Nithai Barzam, chief operating officer of nsKnox, last month about the rise of cyber threats during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The conversation came against a backdrop of rising financial losses connected to business email compromise (BEC) scams. According to the FBI, such scams have cost firms more than $26 billion over the past three years.

“The numbers are just overwhelming,” said Barzam.

Anywhere from 2% to 5% of enterprise revenues are lost to fraud, he said, with emails, PDFs, in-house and external communications and data flows all offering points of vulnerability.

There’s also the rising threat of malware attacks and “impersonation attacks” — in which fraudsters impersonate company executives or legitimate business partners.

Meanwhile, Barzam said organizations are finding it increasingly tough to keep traditional checks in place. If an office is closed due to COVID-19, workers need to rely on voicemail, email, peer-to-peer messaging texting to handle internal and external communications.

Bringing unsecured home networks and employee devices into the mix creates a situation where businesses are more vulnerable to B2B payments fraud, Barzam said.