STARTUP EUROPE: Interview With Gianni Cuozzo From C2sec

Hi Gianni, a pleasure to have you here after the TWIST Webinar on cybersecurity. Would you mind briefly introducing yourself to our readers?

Hi everyone , I’m Gianni Cuozzo i was born in Darmstadt (Germany) 25 years ago , but my family is from Valva(SA) a very nice small town in the south of Italy , i started to be focused on cybersecurity when i was a teenager and with time i focused even more on the military aspect of the cybersecurity topic, right now i am a military consultant for various western armed forces for cybersecurity and cyberwarfare ,  I’m also the CEO & Founder of C2Sec s.r.l.  a civilian cybersecurity company based in Rome , we are mainly focused on IOT and SCADA/ICS security for large industries and critical infrastructures ​

So you've been dealing with Cybersecurity for some time and with more than one company. What are your current projects right now?

Right now I’m mainly focused on two companies that i founded, Prism Warfare (Sweeden) and C2Sec(Italy), Prism Warfare is a military offensive cybersecurity company mainly focused on creating cyberweapons for military usage, for example anti-radar malware and so on , we also train special operators to use this kind of weapons on actual battlefields, we’re also working on neural networks crawlers for communication spoofing for counter-terrorism. C2Sec is a more civilian-oriented company working primarly on IOT security for smart cities and off course SCADA/ICS. Right now we are working on artificial intelligence that will perform pentest on infrastructure and also checking  and updating firmware versions of all the devices connected to a network.​

You must have a pretty clear perception on the Cybersecurity market on a European and local level. What can you tell us about the European context? And what about Italy?

The cybersecurity market in Europe is very vivid and stimulating , there are a lot of start-ups working on this topic, and since it’s a broad topic there a lot of start-ups working on different aspects of this field, so off course there is a big growth potential , and with the rise of the cyber city and the IOT , we will have more an more devices connected and those devices will need to be secured. In Europe the cybersecurity is considered a key factor for growth and stability, so governments and large companies are very well aware of that. In Italy there’s not so much awareness about the problem, but things are changing really fast considering that italy is one the world’s largest SCADA device market.​

You probably encounter various kinds of clients during your work. What are the general pain points and strong points of cybersecurity for smaller or bigger companies?

In bigger companies you have to often face the really poor management of the security budget, there are a lot of companies that buys really expensive hardware such as next generation firewalls and other “shiny things with leds!” that they actually don’t need, while many times they refuse to invest in something that actually they really do need. Small companies otherwise have really restricted budgets and they usually tend to not invest at all in cybersecurity because they see cybersecurity as an optional and they undervalue it.​

There's a relevant growth rate and a lot of potential in the cybersecurity market in Europe. Yet what do you think is the biggest issue in this business?

The biggest issue is not recognizing the security problem: there are many companies that actually had really huge security problems by underestimating the risks, so it is really important to raise the awareness  on this topic starting from a government level , and forcing companies that manage sensible data to adopt  serious cybersecurity countermeasures. ​

Thanks a lot for your time Gianni. One last question: what would be your single best advice to a tech entrepreneur that wants to launch a cybersecurity company?

My biggest advice is gain trust in the market. Cybersecurity is trust driven market, in which your client must trust you in order to let you protect him. So it’s really important to be a cyber-security evangelist before a cyber-security entrepreneur. Your client must know your name before knowing the name of your company ,only this way you can be a trusted expert starting from day 0.

• to reinforce the links between people, business and associations who build and scale up the startup ecosystem (e.g. the Web Investors Forum, the Accelerator Assembly, the Crowdfunding Network) 
• to inspire entrepreneurs and provide role models (e.g. the Leaders Club and their Startup Manifesto, the Startup Europe Roadshow)
• to celebrate new and innovative startups (with Tech All Stars and Europioneers), help them to expand their business (Startup Europe Partnership, ACE Acceleration Programme), and give them access to funding under Horizon 2020.​