ScramFS: a new, affordable and easy to use encryption tool, to help SMEs and government organisations protect data and meet GDPR compliance

Melbourne, Australia – 22 November 2017 – Scram Software, an award-winning cyber security software development startup, has announced that ScramFS - the world’s most advanced cryptographic file system – will be commercially available to SMEs and government organisations from January 2018. Via its intuitive command line interface (CLI), ScramFS enables system administrators to easily encrypt large amounts of data (whether stored locally or in the cloud) to protect data, reduce breaches and assist GDPR compliance.

"System administrators and DevOps engineers are the trusted custodians of sensitive data. But the alarming increase in data breaches throughout 2017 points to a glaring hole: the people responsible for implementing the technology have not had the right tools to properly protect the information stored and exchanged within their organisation’s network,” said Linus Chang, CEO & founder of Scram Software.

“Encryption is one such tool that is heavily underutilised, or improperly used. Moreover, many engineers think of encryption as difficult, painful or costly - which is a reflection of the lack of quality products currently available. With the upcoming release of ScramFS we are bridging this gap, by providing easy to deploy, affordable cryptography tools to organisations who will also benefit from complying with GDPR through encrypting their plaintext data,” Chang continued. “While system administrators can start encrypting in under five minutes, it’s the ability to script and automate repetitive encryption tasks using the ScramFS CLI that provides reliable and ongoing protection for organisations’ data."

From its inception, Scram Software wanted ScramFS to stand head and shoulders above existing encryption systems. In order to properly combat cybercrime in the age of the cloud, Scram worked closely with academics from leading universities in Australia and the USA. ScramFS has consequently been carefully researched and designed over the past three years with a level of rigour, verification and transparency not seen before in closed-source encryption software. The impetus for this was to address the long-standing lack of trust associated with cryptographic products - the so-called “snake oil” problem – in that it is usually almost impossible for users to verify the claims that a vendor makes.

Dr Ron Steinfeld, an award winning leader in lattice-based cryptography (Monash University, Australia), was the primary cryptographer who designed ScramFS and conducted one of several security analyses of the technology. Dr Steinfeld said, “Scram’s careful approach of getting advice from and working closely with cryptography and security experts in developing crypto products is different from many other software developers I know of. I have heard numerous examples of companies who put crypto design at the hands of software developers with little security background, and consequently make mistakes of incorrectly using or implementing crypto algorithms in their products. Scram's approach significantly reduces the likelihood of such vulnerabilities.”

An additional benefit of ScramFS is that it’s designed to be long-term secure: Most of today’s cryptosystems are expected to be broken by quantum computers within 15 years, but ScramFS uses only quantum-resistant techniques, so what users encrypt today will be secure for years and even decades to come.

Public beta test sites for ScramFS include Core dna, a global provider of an all-in-one digital SaaS platform that allows clients - including Nintendo, Louis Vuitton and Langham Hotels – to create solutions for content, marketing, e-commerce, intranets and communities. Core dna’s specific business need was to be able to help clients servicing the US healthcare sector to comply with HIPAA law, which restricts access to individuals' private medical information.

Sam Saltis, CEO of Core dna, commented, “Using Scram’s encryption technology, we are the first content management system to offer HIPAA compliance with ScramFS and we know that we are delivering the best cryptographic security possible.”

About Scram Software
Scram Software is an award-winning cyber security software development startup founded by Linus Chang, a computer programmer and entrepreneur from Melbourne, Australia who previously created BackupAssist; a SME product which has sold over 170,000 copies to organisations in 165 countries including the Department of Homeland Security and NASA.

Scram Software is dedicated to securing everyone's data in the cloud by making cloud security software that is trustworthy and easy to use. Scram’s team consists of experts in the fields of information theory: cryptography, compression, data backup and processing. The company also has strong ties with Monash University and The University of Melbourne, and provides top Masters students and PhD candidates with commercial work experience.

ScramFS is a software layer that encrypts data as it gets saved to storage, either locally or in the cloud (including Dropbox and Google Drive). Encryption is done transparently and automatically, which ensures uninterrupted user productivity and means that human intervention is not relied upon. In addition, because encryption is performed on the client device only, no plaintext leaves the client. This safeguards the privacy and integrity of data against untrusted, compromised or even maliciously hostile cloud providers.

For more information, please watch this short video, visit https://scramsoft.com and https://scramfs.com or follow us on Twitter and facebook.

###

UK media contact:
Sally Bratton
Bratton PR
sally.bratton@brattonpr.com
+44(0)7930 301601