Feb 16
0

2022 – recap

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As we’ve closed out 2022, we wanted to share some updates and celebrate the success of last year.  With continued growth in both the Commercial and Federal markets, we continue to live the mission to “Protect Life Online” by delivering value and impact to all of our customers.  A few highlights include an exciting contract with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) addressing a major security challenge for the Army, increasing our support to the Financial Services Sector in accelerating their cloud journey, and providing support to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. This included the privilege to talk with ABC News about the cyber warfare and challenges associated with the escalating Ukraine war.

All of this success did not go unnoticed and it was a year of great recognition. We received Inc. Magazine’s award for Fastest Growing Company in the Mid-Atlantic, Best Workplaces – National, and made our debut on the national Inc. 5000.  Building on our B Corp certification, out of all the global B Corps, Grey Market Labs was recognized in the top five “Best for the World” companies for Governance.  Lastly, we were once again awarded a 17&43 award by the University of Delaware – based on revenue, growth, innovation and social impact.  This validation of the hard work of our outstanding team and gives us a great platform to continue growing in 2023.

As we’ve emerged from COVID, we were excited to resume in-person meetings with our customers, across conferences and forums. This included deepening our partnership with the National Cyber Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) as a sponsor at their annual Cyber Crime forum in Pittsburgh and hosting a workshop at the NCTFA New York City offices around “Combatting Financial Crime and Enabling Technology”. The Replica team continued to share our expert insights as part of our New Battlefront Series. After participating this year, we joined the Digital Supply Chain Institute (DSCI), which solidifies our partnership in securing an ever-evolving digital economy.  We closed the year with a celebration of the latest Replica release in October and the inaugural Replica Exchange event. Next year we look forward to more events such as:

SXSW: come see us at the Optiv Cyber House on March 13 https://go.optiv.com/OptivSXSW.html#Register
and hear our CEO and Cofounder – Kris Schroeder at a panel on “National Security Impacts of Ultra-Transparency”

The 2nd Annual Replica Exchange – October 2023

As always, Grey Market Labs and the journey to build Replica would not happen without our amazing customers, team and supporters like you. We look forward to connecting with you in 2023!

___________________________________________________________________________________

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online. Our Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with our patented privacy and Zero Trust architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows simply, on-demand, anywhere. Replica™ support of dozens of use cases that span industries: from disrupting fraud on the dark web, to supporting military operations, combatting human trafficking, and enabling trusted data sharing in healthcare. 

Grey Market Labs® is the first cybersecurity product company recognized as a Certified B-Corp organization.

Contact us to see how we can work together.

Aug 31
0

Grey Market Labs Ranks No. 1321 on the 2022 Inc. 5000 Annual List

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With Three-Year Revenue Growth of 494% Percent, Grey Market Labs Receives Ranking No. 1321 Among America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies

Arlington, VA, August 31, 2022 – Today, Inc. revealed that Grey Market Labs is No. 1321 on its annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the fastest-growing private companies in America. The list represents a one-of-a-kind look at the most successful companies within the economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent businesses. Facebook, Chobani, Under Armour, Microsoft, Patagonia, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

Grey Market Labs’ CEO, Kristopher Schroeder, states “being named to the Inc 5000 is an incredible recognition of what our team is able to accomplish. Especially for a company that has been bootstrapped, without venture funding, our Grey Market Labs team has been able to achieve tremendous growth organically, by delivering immediate and sustained value to our customers, achieving a 100% renewal rate. As we continue that growth into 2023 and beyond, I’m excited to see where our new partnerships and customer impact will take us!”

The companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 have not only been successful, but have also demonstrated resilience amid supply chain woes, labor shortages, and the ongoing impact of Covid-19. Among the top 500, the average median three-year revenue growth rate soared to 2,144 percent. Together, those companies added more than 68,394 jobs over the past three years.

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at www.inc.com/inc5000. The top 500 companies are featured in the September issue of Inc. magazine, which will be available on August 23.

“The accomplishment of building one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., in light of recent economic roadblocks, cannot be overstated,” says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. “Inc. is thrilled to honor the companies that have established themselves through innovation, hard work, and rising to the challenges of today.”

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online, named one of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies and Best Workplaces. Our patented Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with a Zero Trust isolation architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows on-demand, anywhere. Replica eliminates the cyber risks of old, establishes a resilient architecture that self-heals, and automates the complexity of cloud and orchestration, reducing IT burden by over 99.73%.

More about Inc. and the Inc. 5000

Methodology

Companies on the 2022 Inc. 5000 are ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2018 to 2021. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2018. They must be U.S.-based, privately held, for-profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2021. (Since then, some on the list may have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2018 is $100,000; the minimum for 2021 is $2 million. As always, Inc. reserves the right to decline applicants for subjective reasons. Growth rates used to determine company rankings were calculated to four decimal places. The top 500 companies on the Inc. 5000 are featured in Inc. magazine’s September issue. The entire Inc. 5000 can be found at http://www.inc.com/inc5000.

About Inc.

The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.

For more information on the Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala, visit http://conference.inc.com/.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online. Our Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with our patented privacy and Zero Trust architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows simply, on-demand, anywhere. Replica™ support of dozens of use cases that span industries: from disrupting fraud on the dark web, to supporting military operations, combatting human trafficking, and enabling trusted data sharing in healthcare. 

Grey Market Labs® is the first cybersecurity product company recognized as a Certified B-Corp organization.

Contact us to see how we can work together.

Jul 13
1

Grey Market Labs Recognized as a 2022 Best For The World™ For Exceptional Impact On Its Governance

By | Company News | No Comments

Grey Market Labs, has been named a 2022 Best for the World™ B Corp™ in recognition of its exceptional positive impact on its Governance. Best for the World is a distinction granted by B Lab to Certified B Corporations (B Corps) whose verified B Impact Scores in the five impact areas evaluated in the B Impact Assessment — community, customers, environment, governance, and workers — rank in the top 5% of all B Corps in their corresponding size group.

Grey Market Labs earned this honor through our mission, transparency into our company, and business model.  Being founded as a Public Benefit Corporation allows us to put our mission and values over shareholder best interests.

“We are very proud of the recognition that Grey Market Labs received from B Lab,” said Grey Market Labs’ CEO, Kristopher Schroeder. “Being mission focused is a core element of the culture and governance of Grey Market Labs and informs our product development, hiring and go-to-market strategies. Protecting life online is more important than ever and we will continue to put forth products and services that make the world and its citizens more protected and more productive.”

Every year, Best for the World recognizes the top-performing B Corps creating the greatest positive impact through their businesses. More than a badge of honor, Best for the World provides an opportunity for recognized companies to share knowledge, learnings, and best practices with the B Corp community and businesses outside of the community to encourage innovation and transformation across the business sector. The full lists are available at bcorporation.net.

The Best for the World recognition is administered by B Lab, the global nonprofit network that certifies and mobilizes B Corps, which are businesses that meet high standards of positive social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Today, there are more than 5,000 B Corps across 80 countries and 155 industries, unified by one common goal: building an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system.

“Each Best for the World edition is an opportunity to raise the bar for how businesses can and should operate to create real and lasting positive impact for their workers, customers, communities, and the environment,” said Dan Osusky, Head of Standards and Insights at B Lab Global. “While no company is perfect and even the best companies can and should continue to strive to improve, the B Corps recognized as Best for the World can provide us all — standards setters, B Corps, non B Corps, and sustainability advocates — with inspiration on what true leadership in business can look like to make progress on addressing our current global challenges.”

B Corp Certification doesn’t just evaluate a product or service, it assesses the overall social and environmental impact of the company that stands behind it. To achieve B Corp Certification, a company must meet a score of at least 80 points on the B Impact Assessment, an evaluation of a company’s positive impact, and pass a risk review, an evaluation of a company’s negative impact; change their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders; and exhibit transparency by allowing information about their B Corp Certification performance to be publicly available on their B Corp profile on B Lab’s website.

 

****

 

About Grey Market Labs:

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online, named one of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies and Best Workplaces. Our patented Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with a Zero Trust isolation architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows on-demand, anywhere. Replica eliminates the cyber risks of old, establishes a resilient architecture that self-heals, and automates the complexity of cloud and orchestration, reducing IT burden by over 99.73%.

Contact: info@greymarketlabs.com

About B Lab: B Lab is transforming the global economy to benefit all people, communities, and the planet. A leader in economic systems change, our global network creates standards, policies, tools, and programs for business, and we certify companies — known as B Corps — who are leading the way. To date, our community includes 400,000 workers in over 5,000 B Corps across 80 countries and 155 industries, and more than 200,000 companies manage their impact with the B Impact Assessment and the SDG Action Manager. B Lab has created and led efforts to pass over 50 corporate statutes globally that enable stakeholder governance, with over 10,000 companies using the legal framework. To learn more and join the movement, visit www.bcorporation.net.

B Lab Contact: press@bcorporation.net

Jul 08
2

The New Battlefront: Cyber Attacks on Institutions

By | Cyber Warfare | No Comments

Cyber Attacks on Institutions

The shift to work from home dramatically increased the places hackers could attack companies, with home networks and personal computers being used for daily tasks.  This resulted in a dramatic growth in cyber attacks on institutions and cybercrime has increased by 600% since the start of the pandemic. While cyber attacks, in general, have been growing, the ability of cybercriminals to access less secure personal access points and, from there, gather information on institutions has exploded. When a cyber attack targets an institution, it is when it happens, not if it happens, because every organization will be affected by a cyber attack at some point in its lifecycle. On average, a malware attack costs a company over $2.5 million (including the time needed to resolve the attack[1]). Large businesses experience, on average, 130 security breaches per year per organization, so the likelihood of an attack happening is almost guaranteed[2].

In many organizations, the responsibility of cybersecurity lies with the technical staff, including the chief information officer (CIO) and chief information security officer (CISO). These people are responsible for fortifying the company’s defenses and responding to cyber attacks. When responding to a cyber attack, the IT team must determine how large a breach was and what areas were affected. Chief Engineer, Nyla Khali, supported a client in investigating a potential breach that unfortunately lasted weeks because there was a lack of forensic information. She states, “it is paramount that systems employ a defense-in-depth strategy along with fine-tuned detection and monitoring.” This means having logs of what happened, hopefully down to the user and/or computer level. The CIO and CISO must clearly define what information ins needed for reporting and regulatory compliance. While implementing these strategies, organizations must reconcile the privacy and legal implications of collected data. Per a US-CERT publication on Computer Forensics, in the U.S., there are two primary areas of legal governance affecting cyber security actions related to the collection of network data: (1) authority to monitor and collect the data and (2) the admissibility of the collection methods[3]. In a cyber attack, good strategies will allow the IT team to thwart and investigate an attack quickly. Following this vital information, the IT team in collaboration with executives or board members publicly report on the breach and confidently handle disclosure and legal requirements.

Beyond the direct impact that cyber attacks have on an organization, they also threaten the reputation and value of the organization. Suppose that organization has private or confidential information they need to keep protected and is the target of a cyber attack. In that case, their customers may be less likely to trust the company and stop using their products or services. Additionally, the company’s valuation could be directly impacted if that company or organization is currently undergoing an IPO, merger, or acquisition. A study by Comparitech examined the share prices of 34 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange that had experienced major data breaches and found that companies that have experienced a breach underperform the market by more than 15% three years later. Immediately following the breach, share prices for the 34 companies fell by -3.5% on average and underperformed the NASDAQ by -3.5%[4].

Some simple ways to protect your organization are to train your employees, use antivirus software, secure your networks, use strong passwords, and especially use multifactor authentication[5]. During a Cyber Defense roundtable discussion sponsored by CSIS/DOJ, a panel of experts recommended that “against particularly sophisticated or advanced threat actors, however, they suggested using cyber intelligence gathering as an additional component of a defensive program.” Moving forward and beyond the basics – companies need to start implementing new architectures that eliminate the cyber threats of today and make many of these basic threats disappear. Since employees and emails are the leading cause of data breaches, especially in small businesses, because they are a direct path into the company’s systems, if we can eliminate the threat of malicious attachments without having to change the behavior of users, companies can drastically reduce their chances of major or impactful breaches.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online. Our Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with our patented privacy and Zero Trust architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows simply, on-demand, anywhere. Replica™ support of dozens of use cases that span industries: from disrupting fraud on the dark web, to supporting military operations, combatting human trafficking, and enabling trusted data sharing in healthcare. 

Grey Market Labs® is the first cybersecurity product company recognized as a Certified B-Corp organization.

Contact us to see how we can work together.

Jun 01
1

Grey Market Labs Named as a 2022 Moxie Award Finalist

By | Company News | No Comments

Grey Market Labs is pleased to have been named a finalist in the 2022 Moxie Award in the category of Cybersecurity. This prestigious award recognizes companies and organizations in the Washington, D.C. metro area that demonstrate Boldness in Business.

This is the first year that Grey Market Labs has been selected to be a finalist for the Moxie Award.

“I want to congratulate our team for enabling us to be recognized among the boldest and most innovative business in D.C.” said Kristopher Schroeder, CEO. “Looking at the other finalists in our category, many are larger or have been around longer, but none have combined cutting-edge patented tech and cyber security products along with our social mission as a certified B Corp. This commitment to doing more in our community and world motivates the team at Grey Market Labs and provides the north star for all our decisions. It truly has made the difference in our growth and success.”

Finalists were recently announced by Katie Jordan, the 2022 Moxie Award chair. “This year’s finalists truly represent the spirit of Moxie and we are excited to help tell the stories of how they have persevered through a difficult time and continue to innovate,” Jordan said. “We look forward to revealing the winners at the 2022 Moxie Award celebration on October 26, 2022, at The Ritz-Carlton in Tysons Corner.”

A complete list of finalists can be found at https://moxieaward.com.

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About Grey Market Labs

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online named one of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies. Our patented Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with a Zero Trust isolation architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows on-demand, anywhere. Replica eliminates the cyber risks of old, establishes a resilient architecture that self-heals, and automates the complexity of cloud and orchestration, reducing IT burden by over 99.7%.

About Moxie Award

The Moxie Award program is a night full of celebration and connections, honoring the accomplishments and achievements of growing businesses, nonprofits and associations in the DC metro community. Organizations are recognized for having demonstrated boldness and innovation as an integral part of their growth strategy. These outstanding organizations not only help make the DC metro area a great place to do business, but also an incredible place to live, thrive and play.

May 27
2

The New Battlefront 101: Cyber Attacks on Individuals

By | Cyber Warfare | No Comments

Cyber Attacks on Individuals

Individuals can be dramatically affected by cyber attacks and the resulting effect on their identity can be detrimental. Through cell phones and tablets, cybercriminals find it easier to access personal information. This information is collected, used, sold, or released depending on the information gathered. Celebrities and politicians are top targets for directed cyber attacks, but everyday people are also targeted. Most people have heard of celebrities’ nudes being released or politicians’ private affairs being published to discredit or embarrass them. However, everyday information is gathered from unsuspecting individuals, including bank account information, passwords, or additional personal information. Cyber attacks can occur in many ways, including[1]:

  • Access your personal computers, mobile phones, gaming systems, and other internet- and Bluetooth-connected devices.
  • Damaging your financial security, including identity theft.
  • Blocking your access or deleting your personal information and accounts.
  • Complicating your employment or business services.
  • Impacting transportation and the power grid.

When a cyberattack happens, the cybercriminal could take out loans, incur credit, accumulate debt and then flee without a trace. Leaving the individual to rehabilitate their identity through years of work while dealing with bad credit and financial instability. While companies can insure themselves against cyber attacks, individuals are more open to direct impacts. To limit the risks of a cyber attack, individuals should[2]:

  • Implement multi-factor authentication on your accounts and make it 99% less likely you’ll get hacked.
  • Update your software. Turn on automatic updates.
  • Think before you click. More than 90% of successful cyber-attacks start with a phishing email.
  • Use strong passwords, and ideally, a password manager to generate and store unique passwords.

Grey Market Labs Engineer, Emily Kresho, advises that “the keys to avoiding a cyber attack are prevention and education. Individuals should take advantage of antivirus software, virtual private networks (VPNs), a device’s built-in privacy settings, and other prevention methods. It is also important to research common and current cyber attack methods so they are easier to identify. An article might point out a popular technique used by attackers, and the next day you might notice that technique in a suspicious email.” Vigilance is the form of defense against cyber attacks. Keeping an eye on your accounts to catch any unknown or suspicious activity can stop cyber attacks before they get full access to your information.

 

***The next article in The New Battlefront 101 series will discuss how propaganda is used in information warfare to shape opinions.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online. Our Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with our patented privacy and Zero Trust architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows simply, on-demand, anywhere. Replica™ support of dozens of use cases that span industries: from disrupting fraud on the dark web, to supporting military operations, combatting human trafficking, and enabling trusted data sharing in healthcare. 

Grey Market Labs® is the first cybersecurity product company recognized as a Certified B-Corp organization.

Contact us to see how we can work together.

May 24
1

Kristopher Schroeder Graduates from MissionLink’s Spring 2022 Cohort; Joins Esteemed Alumni Network

By | Company News | No Comments

Arlington, VA—May 24, 2022—Grey Market Labs, a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online, is proud to announce that Kristopher Schroeder, CEO, has graduated from MissionLink.Next, an exclusive nationwide network that serves as a force-multiplier and gateway to accelerating innovation and advancing solutions to National Security threats.

Founded in 2010, MissionLink’s mission is to connect passionate problem solvers with next-gen, mission-critical capabilities in NatSec tech to the right resources, customers, investors, advisors and partners to solve the rapidly evolving national security concerns across commercial and federal sectors. For more than 10 years, MissionLink has been on the cutting edge of National Security and is recognized as the organization that has most captured the timeliness and immediacy of the latest security developments, discoveries and breakthroughs.

“We are proud to welcome Kristopher Schroeder into MissionLink’s esteemed alumni network,” said Andy Lustig, cofounder and Organizing Board member of MissionLink.Next. “Our objective is to seed and accelerate innovation across the country, from Washington DC to Silicon Valley, and bridge enterprise and national security missions with dual-use commercial capabilities – and the Spring 2022 cohort is certainly representative of the innovation and momentum happening in NatSec tech.”

Kristopher Schroeder was selected by world class technologists and thought leaders that serve on MissionLink’s Board of Advisors, such as Will Grannis, CTO of Google, and Ron Gula, cofounder of Tenable Network Solutions, to participate in the Spring 2022 Cohort. Throughout the program, cohort members attended a series of events, led by notable speakers such as Dr. Michael Capps, CEO of Diveplane and former founder of Fortnite/Epic Games; Chris Gladwin, CEO of Ocient and former founder and CEO of Cleversafe; Dawn Meyerriecks, former Deputy Director of CIA; Gus Hunt, former CTO of CIA; and Michael Morell, former Acting Director at CIA. Upon completion, cohort members now join a powerful alumni network of more than 500 CXOs; many of which credit MissionLink with providing their company with the game changing access, insight and opportunity needed to drive meaningful growth and impact to their industry and customers. Grey Market Labs now joins the ranks of successful MissionLink alumni which include the founders and CEOs of Rapid7, MAG Aerospace, Cofense, Altamira, Cloudera, Cylance, Crowdstrike, Novetta and Dovel Technologies.

Jeremy King, cofounder and Organizing Board member, also commented, “National security’s mission has become much broader and is rapidly evolving, and the need for collaboration between the government and commercial sector is critical now more than ever. For decades, the answer was ‘public-private partnership’ – we believe it is now time to empower industry innovation and facilitate ‘private-public partnership.’ MissionLink has become the most exclusive room in the country to learn, share and contribute to the thought leadership and innovative technologies for what happens Next.”

The MissionLink Organizing Board includes Jeremy King of Benchmark Executive Search; Matt Devost of OODA Inc.; and Andy Lustig and Katherine Ferguson of Cooley LLP. MissionLink is backed by an elite advisory board comprised of the best and brightest minds from the defense, Intelligence and NatSec tech sectors who are deeply committed to building a strong ecosystem for success – including Sue Gordon, former NGA and CIA; Bill Crowell, former NSA; Charlene Leubecker, former CIA; Bob Gourley, former CTO at DIA; Bryan Ware, former DHS; Ron Ritchey, Chief Cyber Architect at JP Morgan Chase; Ellen McCarthy, former Department of State; Fran Landolf, former NSA; Cyndi Gula and Ron Gula of Gula Tech Adventures; Will Grannis, CTO of Google; Jen Sovada of Sandbox AQ; Lt Gen Rhett Hernandez, former Chief of Army Cyber Command; Peggy Styer and Jack Kerrigan of Razor’s Edge Ventures; Tim Newberry, Entrepreneur in Residence at TenEleven Ventures; Wes Blackwell, Partner at Scout Ventures; and Constantine Saab, Partner at Valor Equity.

 

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About Grey Market Labs

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online named one of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies. Our patented Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with a Zero Trust isolation architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows on-demand, anywhere. Replica eliminates the cyber risks of old, establishes a resilient architecture that self-heals, and automates the complexity of cloud and orchestration, reducing IT burden by over 99.7%.

About MissionLink.Next

MissionLink.Next is a non-profit trade association and exclusive network that includes decision makers, government leaders, top founders and CEOs from across the US who are building the most cutting-edge mission critical capabilities in cyber, AI, virtual reality, IoT, space and quantum science. MissionLink.Next companies are addressing the next generation of threats across national security, healthcare, financial services, ecommerce, social media, life sciences, automotive and transportation, logistics, supply chain, manufacturing and critical infrastructure. Backed by an elite advisory board comprised of the best and brightest minds from defense, Intel and homeland security sectors, MissionLink’s trusted innovation ecosystem fosters access, insight and opportunity to bridge enterprise and national security missions with dual-use commercial capabilities. For more information, please visit the MissionLink.Next website.

May 19
1

The New Battlefront 101: Disinformation

By | Information Security | No Comments

Information Warfare: Disinformation

 

The Problem:

Disinformation is a type of misinformation where someone shares data that they know is incorrect in order to influence individual, group, or public opinion or obscure the truth.  Disinformation may include distribution of forged documents, videos, manuscripts, and photographs, or spreading dangerous rumors and fabricated intelligence.  China has been a major player in the disinformation strategy.

  • China created a “keyboard army” that is a large group of Chinese citizens paid to monitor the internet and influence public opinion on a massive scale online. The end goal is to aggressively defend and protect China’s image overseas[1].
  • Spamouflage Dragon is a pro-Chinese political spam network that camouflages their political messaging with innocent content (showing, for instance, cute animals and dancing girls)[2]. The innocent content creates simple clickbait, but once people click, Spamouflage Dragon shares their political message.
  • Another tactic is fake or hijacked social media accounts, where those accounts become the nexus for disinformation. China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats aggressively defend their home country online through building an audience with viral content, leveraging the influence networks of other autocrats, manufacturing the appearance of popular backing, posting conflicting conspiracy theories, and using ‘positive’ content to drown out criticism[3].

Disinformation contains false or out-of-context true information but the key components are that it always carries a malicious intent, it is deliberately deployed, and often part of a larger influence campaign. These longer term campaigns are often pushed over an extended period with concrete and continuous efforts with the “Big Lie” playbook being a good example. The six stages of media manipulation in the “Big Lie” – from Campaign Planning, to Seeding Information, Eliciting Responses, Adjusting Tactics, then restarting the cycle again and again.

Possible Solutions:

Understanding that first stage (the source and their intent) can go a long way in tackling the disinformation. First, always confirm the information from multiple reputable sources. Secondly, find out who benefits the most and how they are related to the spread of this information. These two questions can go long way with tackling the disinformation. If you don’t know who is pushing the information and whether it’s a true or not, you know it’s not trustworthy.

Combating disinformation at a national level is a hard problem to solve. However, it is possible with time and strategic approach. Grey Market Labs Engineer, Dhaval Vyas, states that “education is a key when it comes to combating disinformation. A well rounded education teaches critical thinking skills, which are extremely helpful with the identification of disinformation. Younger people are particularly vulnerable to fake news and disinformation. Therefore, developing critical thinking skills early on and teaching an ability to manage propaganda, fake news and disinformation effectively can go long way in combating disinformation.” However, this is a longer process.

The technology has amplified the problem of disinformation; however it can also offer a potential solutions. One approach could be using blockchain. Blockchain system uses a decentralized and immune ledger to manage information. It can help provide transparency into the lifecycle of the content by verifying origin and source reputation. The New York Times’s News Provenance Project is utilizing this approach. Another approach could be a use of global registries of labeled fake news. There are already websites available that helps with identification of fake news, such as factcheck.org and politifact.com. Integrating these websites with social media and news organizations through APIs could be very helpful. Lot of fake news is AI generated and it could also be used to identify fake news. Natural networks generate synthetic text, and they are also familiar with habits, quirks, and traits of the text. This makes them well-suited to detect content emerging from those networks.

The terms propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation need to be well defined. Legal structure needs to be added around these terms to allow accountability to be held for the organizations/persons spreading disinformation needs to be brought to justice using these laws. Presently there is little deterrence on spreading disinformation. At a global scale, formulating shared terminology for combating disinformation, and deliberately and continuously responding to foreign-sponsored disinformation is necessary to reduce the impact and potential harm from state sponsored campaigns.

 

***The next article in The New Battlefront 101 series will discuss cyber attacks on individuals.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online. Our Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with our patented privacy and Zero Trust architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows simply, on-demand, anywhere. Replica™ support of dozens of use cases that span industries: from disrupting fraud on the dark web, to supporting military operations, combatting human trafficking, and enabling trusted data sharing in healthcare. 

Grey Market Labs® is the first cybersecurity product company recognized as a Certified B-Corp organization.

Contact us to see how we can work together.

May 10
1

Grey Market Labs Ranks Among Highest-Scoring Businesses on Inc. Magazine’s Annual List of Best Workplaces for 2022

By | Company News | No Comments

Grey Market Labs named among best workplaces.

Arlington, VA May 10, 2022: Grey Market Labs has been named to Inc. Magazine’s annual Best Workplaces list. Featured in the May/June 2022 issue, hitting newsstands on May 17, 2022, and prominently featured on Inc.com, the list is the result of a comprehensive measurement of American companies that have excelled in creating exceptional workplaces and company culture, whether operating in a physical or virtual facility.

Grey Market Labs is an employee-owned, certified B corporation that prioritizes team member flexibility and innovation. As co-owners, team members are bought into the public benefit mission and are recognized for their impact on the company and mission. Through the Inc. survey, one of our team members said: “Grey Market Labs is a place that I feel fosters independent critical thinking, recruits smart motivated people that lift everyone up, has leadership that is honest and transparent, and has a mission that excites and motivates me.”

As a results-driven and remote-first company, Grey Market Labs does not require team members to work the standard 9-to-5. Instead, team members determine their hours and decide where they want to work (remote, hybrid, or on-site), with no change to compensation. Responsibility to each other and their customers is a key hallmark of success at the Labs. The team travels to meet each other and customers to build connections, not for daily commutes. This gives tremendous flexibility to travel and work anywhere. To build company culture, we meet up regularly for collaboration and host company-wide offsites multiple times a year. This rapidly moves projects forward, fuels innovation, builds those critical connections and trust so important for a distributed team. It also helps drive what benefits the company offers, which are chosen annually by team requests.

Active collaboration between all team members, regardless of job title, is a key feature of Grey Market Lab’s culture. The team works in a highly coordinated way with daily, online chats and robust channels with history dating back to the company’s founding. Roles cut across experience levels and team members self-select areas of expertise, where junior engineers could be working directly with the CTO on a project and then take the lead on another effort.  This has increased buy-in, self-ownership and connectedness to the work.

After collecting data from thousands of submissions, Inc. selected 475 honorees this year. Each company that was nominated took part in an employee survey, conducted by Quantum Workplace, which included topics such as management effectiveness, perks, fostering employee growth, and overall company culture. The organization’s benefits were also audited to determine overall score and ranking.

Grey Market Labs CEO, Kristopher Schroeder says, “My cofounder, Ryan, and I started with a simple goal, to build a product company that we loved to work at. While some days can be hard, this has been the greatest journey of our careers and we are still early! From putting a public mission first at incorporation and now as a certified B-Corp, or making sure flexibility was available for everyone as a remote-first team, every step has been driven with a clear focus to enjoy what we are doing and be the best in our field at the intersection of privacy and productivity.”

“Not long ago, the term ‘best workplace’ would have conjured up images of open-office designs with stocked snack fridges,” says Inc. editor-in-chief Scott Omelianuk. “Yet given the widespread adoption of remote work, the concept of the workplace has shifted. This year, Inc. has recognized the organizations dedicated to redefining and enriching the workplace in the face of the pandemic.”

About Grey Market Labs

Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online. We are driving innovation and change in software and privacy as one of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies in the MidAtlantic. Our patented Replica™ platform eliminates the cyber risks of old, establishes a resilient architecture that self-heals, and automates the complexity of cloud and application orchestration, reducing IT burden by over 99%. Replica orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with our patented privacy and Zero Trust architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows on-demand, anywhere. We empower the most important work of our customers: across Commercial, Federal, and Defense in areas of Fraud Investigations, Countering Human Trafficking, Threat Intelligence and Cybersecurity, Malware Disruption, Data Science for National Security, Secure DevOps and more.

For more information, please visit: www.greymarketlabs.com + www.replicacyber.com

About Inc. Media

The world’s most trusted business-media brand, Inc. offers entrepreneurs the knowledge, tools, connections, and community to build great companies. Its award-winning multiplatform content reaches more than 50 million people each month across a variety of channels including websites, newsletters, social media, podcasts, and print. Its prestigious Inc. 5000 list, produced every year since 1982, analyzes company data to recognize the fastest-growing privately held businesses in the United States. The global recognition that comes with inclusion in the 5000 gives the founders of the best businesses an opportunity to engage with an exclusive community of their peers, and the credibility that helps them drive sales and recruit talent. The associated Inc. 5000 Conference is part of a highly acclaimed portfolio of bespoke events produced by Inc. For more information, visit www.inc.com.

Apr 29
2

The New Battlefront 101: Misinformation

By | Cyber Warfare | No Comments

Information Warfare

Misinformation

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information and is often spread widely to others, regardless of an intent to deceive. Misinformation itself isn’t a targeted battleground but instead turns into one when information is spread before ensuring it is correct.

The best way to combat misinformation is to research what the information is trying to say. Look into who is behind this information, what is the evidence behind it, and what do other sources say. If the information is an image or meme, doing a reverse image search on Google can verify that image. Another thing to look at is where the information is coming from. If the new sources are biased or neutral, that would completely change the information you are reading. People can check the bias on different media sites with Ad Fontes’ Media Bias Chart.

The monetization model of internet media today incentivizes engagement over the accuracy of information. Most people who spread misinformation on the internet are not doing so willingly; they simply share information they find interesting. Unfortunately, those who want to spread disinformation intentionally can take advantage of these incentives to leverage others as unwitting participants in their distribution of false information and obscure the original source in the process. Many of these false stories pose as plausible but sensational stories. Because it is common for information to be reposted many times without attribution, you may need to dig deeper than the immediate author to learn more about its origins. Grey Market Labs Chief Engineer, Justin Schmitt, recommends, “to search for portions of the article in a search engine; are parts of the article corroborated or copied from other sources? Are these sources reputable, biased, or are they content farms?”

Justin also suggests “to watch for any signs of deep-fake or AI-generated imagery currently in use. Familiarize yourself with common AI imagery capabilities so that you can spot them when you find them in use. For example, ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com demonstrates some AI imagery techniques that some may use when attempting to fake profile pictures. Refresh the page a few times, and you will notice that these AI images, while realistic, often have distinctive patterns which can be used to identify them.”

While misinformation can be intentional or not, its impact on the public’s opinion is extreme. In that sense, this is the more effective and efficient form of cyber warfare because the ability for information to reach many different audiences is unbeatable. All someone needs is a simple share from one other person, then that information goes beyond the initial network and reaches a tenfold audience.

 

***The next article in The New Battlefront 101 series will discuss how cyber attacks on institutions affects everyday life.

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Grey Market Labs® is a Certified B-Corp founded with the mission to protect life online. Our Replica™ platform orchestrates, automates, and secures Environments-as-a-Service, making organizations more protected with our patented privacy and Zero Trust architecture and more productive by increasing access to critical data, tools, and workflows simply, on-demand, anywhere. Replica™ support of dozens of use cases that span industries: from disrupting fraud on the dark web, to supporting military operations, combatting human trafficking, and enabling trusted data sharing in healthcare. 

Grey Market Labs® is the first cybersecurity product company recognized as a Certified B-Corp organization.

Contact us to see how we can work together.