Startup Spotlight: LeakSignal Helps Plug Leaky Data in Organizations

Data leakage is a big problem for organizations. While there are many ways to protect data when it is "at rest," it is much harder to know where the data is going, who is accessing it, and how much has already been accessed. LeakSignal is an openly distributed data governance solution that classifies and protects sensitive data.

Customers can block sensitive data before it is logged, observe and redact it during calls to outbound third-party application programming interfaces (APIs), and observe and set limits on internal API data access.

"We are bringing a new observability metric to the world, allowing organizations to understand and govern the data flowing within their environment," says Wesley Hales, co-founder and CEO.

The platform is designed to seamlessly integrate with an organization's existing architecture, he says.

"We don't require an additional container, [virtual machine], or traffic routing," Hales says, noting that there is no disruption to existing traffic.

LeakSignal offers data flow governance focusing on real-time, in-transit data classification.

"Unlike traditional data loss prevention tools or perimeter-based security measures, LeakSignal operates within individual services across modern service mesh, microservices, and bespoke internal environments," Hales adds.

LeakSignal relies on natural language processing techniques to classify and manage data in-transit, he says. It is built with Rust, providing flexible deployment options within modern and existing architectures.

"LeakSignal supports many deployment options leveraging WASM, native proxy filters, and pcap that can be easily deployed within existing infrastructures, such as service meshes, serverless, and GenAI workloads," Hales says.

The LeakSignal team recently published the company's data flow governance approach with National Institute of Standards and Technology and is currently working with Payment Card Industry special interest groups to make data in-transit classifications simple for every regulated environment, Hales says.

"Our next focus is on expanding support for more complex AI models and refining our data classification algorithms to provide even more accurate and comprehensive protection," he explains.

Startup Spotlight Finalist

The co-founders chose the name LeakSignal to reflect its core mission: to identify and signal data leaks in real time, providing organizations with the visibility they need to protect sensitive information. The "signal" emphasizes the team's focus on proactive monitoring and alerting, ensuring data issues are detected and addressed before they become significant problems, Hales says.

The four finalists in this year's Black Hat Startup Spotlight competition — DryRun Security, Knostic, LeakSignal, and RAD Security — will present their business models to a panel of judges during the Black Hat USA Conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Aug. 6. The judges for this year’s competition are Ketaki Borade (senior analyst, Omdia), Coleen Coolidge (CISO adviser, SF Info Security), Trey Ford (CISO adviser), Hollie Hennessy (senior analyst, Omdia), Maria Markstedter (founder and CEO, Azeria Labs), Lucas Nelson (founding partner, Lytical Ventures), Robert J Stratton III (venture partner, NextGen Venture Partners), and Rik Turner (principal analyst, Omdia). The "Shark Tank"-style competition involves each finalist making a presentation and then answering questions from the panel.

Finalists have the opportunity to demonstrate their technology on the show floor at Black Hat. Visitors to LeakSignal's booth will be able to see demonstrations of the platform as well as case studies with existing customers. They will see how easy it is to deploy LeakSignal within various environments and understand its impact on data security and compliance, says Hales. (Fun fact: Hales says next year's booth will be modeled after a post-apocalyptic diner.)

Startup Brief

If the company were a band, what would its band name be?

Packet Frenzy. (A chaotic blend of aggressive riffs and complex rhythms mirroring the fast-paced and unpredictable nature of data flows.) "Packet Frenzy thrives on dissonance and mathematical precision, just like LeakSignal's approach to detecting data anomalies," Hales says.

If your company had a mascot, what would the mascot look like?

A person dressed in a HAZMAT suit (for nuclear waste incidents and cleanup), carrying a Geiger counter that detects if a given individual is leaking personal data.