The Alumni Magazine for Worcester Polytechnic Institute. (WPI)
Issue link: http://wpialumnimag.epubxp.com/i/456562
36 Winter 2015 0000011110001110101011111000000000000101100000011110001110101011111000000000000101100000011110001110101011111000000 0000001011000000111100011101010101011010010110000001111000111010101111100000000000010110000001111000111010101111100 00000000v0010110000001111000110010110000110000111011011001001100000011110001110101011111000000000000101100000011110 comforting. You don't have a roommate who's out partying all night while you're doing Calculus IV homework." It was an exciting time to study computer engineering—with the dot-com era just around the corner, Ghosh found that WPI embraced cutting-edge technology just as he and his family had. Students had accounts on Bitnet, an early network that connected universities around the world, and they used email to communicate long before it became an everyday technology. Paul Kirkitelos, who graduated from WPI the year before Ghosh, recalls helping his younger friend decide where to go to graduate school; the two deliberated about the options over email before Ghosh ultimately decided to join Kirkitelos at the Uni- versity of Virginia. Ghosh was always a good student, Kirkitelos says, but his interests ranged beyond engineering. "He was quite high-profle on cam- pus," Kirkitelos says. "He had a wide network of friends from all corners of the school—fraternities, sports, academics, clubs, etc. It's no surprise that he has gone so far in business by combining his strong technical expertise with his communication and interpersonal skills to become a successful entrepreneur." Today, Ghosh rarely writes code himself—Invincea has a team of software developers to handle that. As the public face of his company, he is more likely to spend his work- week on the road, meeting with executives at large banks and top insurance companies who are considering deploying Invincea's security software across their organizations. He has become well known as an expert on cybersecurity, appearing on CNN, MSNBC, and other news channels to give context to the latest news stories in- volving hackers and security breaches, and his commentaries have appeared in media outlets like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. He has even been asked to help with an upcoming television series, CSI: Cyber. "I met the creator of CSI, Anthony Zuiker, at a National Academies Press meeting a few years ago," Ghosh explains. "They were look- ing for inspiration, and since TV is a visual medium we showed them our malware visualization tools, called Cynomix. They were blown away." While the air date has yet to be announced, CSI fans can look forward to seeing real Cynomix imagery on the screens of investigators who are fghting fctional cybercrime. It's a Tuesday afternoon, and Ghosh has recently returned from talks with po- tential customers in New York. After a meeting in the conference room, where executives often have video chats with employees at other locations on a large fat-screen TV, he strolls through the open offce, a large room with bright-green walls and windows overlooking down- town Fairfax. Invincea's young develop - ers are staring intently at their monitors, working to keep pace with the criminals and mischief-makers who are constantly adapting their own malevolent products. "It's only been the last couple years that corporate boardrooms have really caught on to the real cost of cybersecu- rity breaches," Ghosh notes. "There have been very public breeches that caused de- clining share prices, lost revenues, missed earnings—it really affects shareholders." Given what's at stake, Ghosh expects that Invincea's share of the commercial cybersecurity market will only continue to expand. He is aiming for 20 percent by the end of 2016, a fgure that would give more established competitors a real run for their money, but Invincea's ultimate goal is to replace the outdated software upon which too much of the business world still relies. Ghosh's own offce is sparsely decorated, with a computer perched on a standing desk, a small meeting area and, in the cor- ner, a heavyweight punching bag, suspended by a long chain from a steel beam above the acoustic-tile ceiling. The bag, Ghosh says, was meant to serve as a stress reliever. "I use it less than I used to, though," he says with a smile. "There aren't many bad days." AS AN ENGINEER, IT'S VERY SATISFYING TO GIVE BIRTH TO AN IDEA, DEVELOP IT, AND THEN SEE IT IN PRODUCTION ON A LARGE SCALE. I THINK WE'RE ALL MOTIVATED BY THAT. WE LIKE TO SOLVE HARD PROBLEMS, AND WE LIKE TO SEE OUR WORK USED BY THE PEOPLE. " " J