The cyber world is a very dangerous place to be creeping about. It’s a must to be careful about what info you provide, especially to those who require your credit info! These days, many mobile developers direct their energy more towards on building the platform for their apps and less on the security aspect, and they lack the necessary access or means to discover any security bugs. OstorLab, which won 3rd place in the ‘Idea Track’ in this year’s MITEF Arab Startup Competition, is designed tighten up cyber security by pointing out such security bugs and weaknesses for the mobile developers.
Ostorlab, is a fully-automated, cloud-based Mobile Application Security Scanner. So how does it work? Simply, upload your mobile application (.ipa or .apk) and start the scan, and within a few hours you will have access to a detailed report of all the identified vulnerabilities with detailed recommendations to help fix them.
The co-founders of OstorLab are: Alaeddine Mesbahi, who was a previous security consultant/engineer and the brains behind the idea, and Mohammed Amin is a software engineer, who has great programming expertise that helped in developing and building the app. To learn more about OstorLab, BarakaBits put together a few questions to ask OstorLab and here are the answers:
1- What is the inspiration (the story) behind OstorLab and its name?
“As Muslim Arabs, we were inspired to create something special that shows how Arabs are still innovative, like how they have been throughout history. The idea was to link between modern technology and the period of Arab technology. Calling it OstorLab was a way to maintain the Arab aspect of the name”. Further research uncovered that the ustorlab, or Astrolabe, is a navigation device created by the Greeks and enhanced by a Muslim 8th-century mathematician named Muhammad al-Fazari.”
2- What makes OstorLab special? That is what is the core benefit received from your product or service?
“It is a product for developers. When developers create mobile applications they have a real low level of security. OstorLab exposes the apps’ weaknesses and guides them on how to fix it. Once an app is created, they can upload it to OstorLab, where it’s then reviewed, and then improved on. Whereas other consultancy agencies charge much money and spend much time, Ostorlab costs much less and takes much less time.”
3- What are the main obstacles that you have faced in the development of OstorLab?
“How to build technology that automates the tests for security assessments.”
4- Now that you have won, what are OstorLab’s next steps? What do you have planned next for OstorLab?
“After meeting all the amazing people and competitors at the Competition, we realized that we are all one community and we need to be a company that does something good for us, as a community. In order to do this, we need to attract customers, gain momentum and sell our product.”
This was the first time these two Moroccans participated in any type of competition. After winning third place, they look forward to taking ahold of this new responsibility and expanding on their products to include new features that enhance the cyber world’s security!
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