A new Edinburgh Napier project aims to bring trust and transparency to the software supply chain, as the School of Computing continues its drive to translate innovative research into real world impact.
The TrueDeploy venture has received £73,418 funding from Scottish Enterprise, as part of its High Growth Spin-out Programme (HGSP), to help develop the project’s innovative technology.
In setting its sights on the multi-billion pound industry to secure software development supply chains, TrueDeploy is following in the footsteps of Edinburgh Napier cyber security spin-outs ZoneFox, Symphonic Software, Cyan Forensics and MemCrypt which have already successfully made the leap from research lab to market.
Potential future spin-out TrueDeploy, which aims to resolve these issues by bringing transparency to the software supply chain, has been developed by a technical team led by research student Pavlos Papadopoulos.
He is working alongside the School of Computing’s Dr Nick Pitropakis and cybersecurity specialist Professor Bill Buchanan. The technical team will be supported on the project by a core business team of Nanik Ramchandani (Imagine Ventures) and Matthew Burdge (Business Development & Relationship Manager, School of Computing).
With Scottish Enterprise’s support, the team is aiming to develop their innovative technology over the next nine months.
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Pavlos Papadopoulos, whose research work is focused on privacy-preserving systems around trust and identity, said: “We are thankful to Edinburgh Napier and Scottish Enterprise for their continuous support. This funding is the first step in bringing this innovation to reality.”
Nanik Ramchandani added: “We sincerely appreciate the support provided by Scottish Enterprise to the start-up ecosystem in Scotland. This support will help us identify the ideal commercial opportunity for TrueDeploy’s ground-breaking innovation.”
The software supply chain relates to the development and supply of software for use across all organisations and systems. This supply chain needs to be managed by organisations that use software due to regulatory requirements and the obligations to ensure their systems are not compromised.
Recent high-profile cyberattacks, including SolarWinds, Kaseya, and NotPetya, have cost companies and nation-states billions of dollars.
Each of these attacks had the same underlying issue, in that they were possible because a threat actor managed to infiltrate and compromise software that was being developed by a software vendor in the long chain that exists from code being written to it being distributed to a customer.
Victoria Carmichael, director of strategic investment at Scottish Enterprise, said: “Cybersecurity is a major issue facing society today and this project has the potential to be hugely impactful.
“Our High Growth Spin-out Programme helps turn innovative university research into successful business ventures.”
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