AI security start-up beat 13 other companies to take home the prize.
AI security start-up Mindgard has been announced as the winner of the UK’s Most Innovative Cyber SME 2024 contest.
Founded at Lancaster University in 2022, Mindgard offers a free online tool for engineers to evaluate the cyber risk to AI systems, including large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, to deploy AI and GenAI securely.
The tool automates the threat discovery process, providing repeatable AI security testing and reliable risk assessment to allow engineers to select from a range of attacks against popular AI models, datasets and frameworks to assess potential vulnerabilities.
The results provide insight on what is the current “art of the possible” in AI attacks and the likelihood of evasion, IP theft, data leakage, and model copying threats.
Dr. Peter Garraghan, CEO of Mindgard and Professor at Lancaster University commented: “We are thrilled to have been recognised for this award and it is a testament to the importance of how AI has been received by the UK market.
“Cybersecurity is a critical component for AI adoption. Organisations are either frantically trying to get AI/GenAI out the door without considering security repercussions, or blocking its deployment entirely due to unknown cyber risks, leaving them unable to unlock its commercial value. This is the gap we aim to fill.”
The contest is open to micro, small and medium cybersecurity businesses registered in the UK, and a total of 14 companies were part of this year’s class.
Written by
Dan Raywood
Senior Editor
SC Media UK
Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with more than 20 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 16 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Conference, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and ESET Security Days.
Outside work, Dan enjoys supporting Tottenham Hotspur, managing mischievous cats, and sampling craft beers.
