Tony Abbott Impressed by Australian Cyber in Israel

Tel Aviv, Israel, May 31, 2017 --(PR.com)-- During former Prime Minster Tony Abbot's visit last week to Israel to receive his honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University, he stopped by the Austrade Landing Pad to inspect the work of the Australian participants there.

Cyber-Security startup CryptoPhoto, run by founder Chris Drake, gained his attention. A week earlier, Drake scooped top-prize in the Cyber & Security category of the prestigious Tel Aviv University's (TAU) Innovation Challenge - no mean feat on account of Israel's universally recognized reputation for producing the world's highest quality cyber-security solutions.

"It’s good to see Aussies being recognized in Israel – the world’s brains bazaar," said Mr Abbott.

Drake's CryptoPhoto solution is a new high-security way to log in to websites which is faster and easier than outdated methods like passwords or 2FA. It uses a system of photo matching, like the kids game "snap", instead. The photos are an innovative way to perform mutual authentication, a security method which blocks a range of cyber attacks like phishing, social-engineering, fake web sites, insecure wifi, and other problems. Importantly, this security invention takes just a couple of seconds to use, "that's faster than you can remember and type a password, which it safely replaces," Drake said.

Drake is in Israel to "Scale up" his cyber business. "Winning at TAU is an honor, and great validation for our product, but success in the competitive and challenging security market, especially for a startup, depends on more than just technical excellence; it needs an ecosystem, adopters, and support to survive," Drake said. "Tel Aviv is literally where business leaders fly to when they're looking to buy effective cyber solutions, which is why winning this award here is so valuable to us."

The Austrade Landing Pad is a program set up by the Australian Government to provide business support, office space, and ecosystem and customer access to growth-stage Australian businesses seeking to scale their company. There are 5 locations around the world catering to assorted business objectives of Australian startups looking to achieve international success.

Chris Drake's short time in Israel has already paid dividends; he reached an agreement with one of the world's largest security vendors and is currently completing integration with their products, he has had multiple VCs, investors, and customers approach him since the competition victory, and is entering discussions to protect more than 30 million customers of a multinational bank, whose deputy CEO Drake met last week.