Protenus founders tapped by cybersecurity think tank

The cofounders of healthcare cybersecurity startup Protenus are providing insight to a think tank that focuses on protecting critical infrastructure from attacks.
Robert Lord and Nick Culbertson, who launched the company through Dreamit Health Baltimore after meeting in medical school at Johns Hopkins, were named fellows with the D.C.-based Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology.
Relying in part on regular insights about threats that the company provides, Lord contributed to a report that looks at how the perpetrators of cyber attacks look to exploit healthcare data on the deep web.
“As a health-sector-grown cybersecurity organization leveraging machine learning for cybersecurity, Protenus will add a unique and highly valuable perspective to the Institute’s health sector initiatives,” Parham Eftekhari, a senior fellow at ICIT, said in a statement. ICIT also looks at cybersecurity for finance, defense, energy and transportation.
On Sept. 22, Lord, the CEO of Protenus, participated in a briefing to the U.S. Senate about potential threats.
Lord aimed to tell policymakers, “What’s the bleeding edge with regard to understanding and thwarting threats to patient data?”

Protenus makes a platform to protect patient data, primarily from insider threats.
“What’s needed is an immune system to understand who should be accessing what inside the hospital,” Lord said in an interview with Technical.ly.
Healthcare has been an area of particular interest, given the breadth of information accessible through records and recent high-profile breaches. Lord said legislators have a role to play in clarifying policy around how data should be protected, as well as in supporting efforts to connect the healthcare system and tech.
After closing a $4 million Series A earlier this year, the company has continued growing. The company added nine employees since February, bringing the total to 22. For more space, Protenus moved from the Broom Factory in Canton to offices at the Tack Factory, located on Central Avenue. It’s a block away from Groove, and just down the street from another cluster of companies in Fells Point and Harbor East.