From a very young age, the CEO and Founder of buguroo, Pablo de la Riva wanted to study architecture. It was something about the design of houses, buildings, and skyscrapers that attracted and propelled him towards the art of planning, designing, and constructing edifices. Furthermore, Pablo had always believed that individuals should work on something they enjoy, and that is how he discovered his inherent love for architecture at an early age.
However, in life not everything goes as planned. Recalling one of the bittersweet incidences, which actually diverted his attention from architecture to building security systems, Pablo reminiscences, “At a prime age of 12, I was given my first computer and while in the midst of the internet boom, I was hacked. An intruder gained control of my system and began talking to me. I didn’t know who they were and they didn’t know who I was. However, they had control of the device that my family had made such an effort to buy. I didn’t know how it could have happened, or where the intruder was. Suddenly all of my previous plans went out of the window. Right then and there, I clearly knew that architecture would have to wait as I was deeply drawn towards the mystical world of cyberspace.”
While beginning his professional career, Pablo started working as an intern at novaGnet, a company founded by César Martín (Current partner at Deloitte Spain and Director of the EMEA global cyber risk center). Counting himself lucky, the charismatic CEO of buguroo feels privileged to have spent several years with César and got to learn numerous things from him. Praising his mentor, Pablo says that César is a brilliant person, humble by nature, grounded, and one of the most talented professionals he has ever had the pleasure to work with. Without intending to, it was César, who initially planted the desire in Pablo to create something of his own. Therefore, at the age of 21, Pablo established buguroo with a goal of providing security services, keeping a close focus on cloud, and building a more ambitious international model in order to cater to the clients in the contemporary business world.
A Platform Specialized in Software Development for Online Fraud Prevention
buguroo manufactures software that combats online fraud. Here, the antifraud solution providing company collaborates with its customers using cutting-edge technologies, so that its users can operate on the Internet as usual with absolute confidence. Pablo and his expert team do this by maintaining complete transparency with their users. Customers don’t have to install anything, or update anything, and it doesn’t matter what system or device they are using. Sharing a recent client request made to the team of buguroo, Pablo asserts, “A few days back, a customer told us that we were something like a ‘wedding planner’ because our solution covers every aspect of online fraud. And I think that’s what makes us unique; we can detect any type of fraud online, whether known or unknown because our global user vision is so complete.”
For this purpose, the whiz team of buguroo utilizes techniques such as deep learning, behavioural biometrics, and data analytics, which are very positive trends, have a great future, and are not just restricted to the online fraud field.
Owing to this specialized platform and its numerous benefits, buguroo was named as “Cool Vendor” in 2016 by Gartner, has been awarded by Cyber Security Breaktrought as the “Fraud Prevention Product of the Year 2018”, and also received a recognition as “Cyber Defense Global Award 2018” in the category of “Best Product Fraud Prevention”.
Bugfraud: A Holistic User-Centric View to Prevent Online Banking Fraud
bugFraud is an online fraud solution, which uses Deep Learning and User Cognitive Analytics to detect and prevent emerging threats to digital banking users. This solution is used to detect suspicious users as well as prevent future attacks from happening on web and mobile device applications.
Essentially, there are two main points where the user can be targeted by fraudsters, once during authentication (login) and the other while authorization (operation). In the first scenario, the main goal of the attacker is to compromise user data, steal credentials or achieve an account take over (ATO). In the second scenario, the fraudster tries to bypass authorization mechanisms. For this, several techniques can be deployed to achieve these goals: phishing, RAT, malware, webinjects, form-grabbers, zero-days and others. Moreover, most of these attacks can be executed anytime during the user’s session. bugFraud creates a hub where all the data is gathered and analyzed to give users the more comprehensive and accurate view to prevent online fraud.
Distinct Features that Sets buguroo Apart
In the ever-evolving market of cybercrime, there are multiple players mainly focused on trying to detect when a user is who they say they are, while others that focus on detecting when a user is being manipulated.
In Pablo and his team’s opinion, cyber fraudsters always find the small cracks between the elements covered by online applications. Hence, bugFraud’s global coverage gives buguroo an important edge. Additionally, it also gives customers the peace of mind of knowing that they have a solution for any type of online threat.
Changing Gears, Targeting Bigger Markets and Expanding Solutions Portfolio
In the upcoming years, buguroo’s next objectives involve expansion in new geographical areas and industries. While they are currently focusing on Latin America and the banking sector, by next year, Pablo’s team will begin to market their solution in Europe and then in the USA. Likewise, they will also add specific solutions to the portfolio for other industries, such as cryptocurrencies, Fintech, and eCommerce in a first phase, later followed by other industries.
Imagining the Exciting Future of Security
The intellectual CEO and Founder of buguroo visualizes cyber security’s future as very exciting. Furthermore, he thinks that there is still a lot of room for discovery and innovation in this space. In the short term, one of the key challenges will involve how companies, especially those that still have significant gaps to cover, with regards to security but already have prosperous businesses functioning, manage to bring themselves up to date while affecting their activity as little as possible. In the mid-term, Pablo sees that the increase in artificial intelligence will condition many of the next steps with regard to defense, but also those of offense. Another pain point will be how to achieve security in a hyper-connected setting, such as automated houses since the number of attack vectors will be very high. IoT, human microchip implants, nano-robots, and many technologies that are more advanced are just beginning to evolve. With these technological innovations and their applications, the future of cybersecurity hence appears very promising.
Crucial Leadership Skillsets
Commenting on the basic qualities that a team leader must possess, Pablo thinks that something essential in projects as complex and as ambitious as those related to cybersecurity is that the person leading it has to be able to get people excited. When individuals are facing major obstacles such as voracious competitors and cyber fraudsters who have numerous means at their disposal, team leaders must truly possess high level of energy, motivation, and positivity to drive their team towards the path of success.
Therefore, leaders ought to inspire their teammates in order to execute the impending project so that the team ultimately becomes the standard-bearers for their leader’s vision; the customers, who can trust the idea; and the market and target audience, to convert them to an as-yet unconsolidated segment.