Tiversa
Tiversa is an American
History
Before entering the cybersecurity field, Boback was a chiropractor and real estate entrepreneur.
Marine One hack
In 2009, Tiversa claimed to have discovered a major security breach involving then-President
LabMD scandal
In May 2008, a Tiversa executive contacted LabMD (a urology testing laboratory) claiming to have discovered evidence of a major data breach and offered to sell LabMD monitoring services to counteract the breach.[1] When the head of LabMD declined to purchase the monitoring services, Tiversa allegedly leaked information about the breach to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which pursues cybersecurity issues. The FTC launched a probe into LabMD's practices under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act in 2010, which evolved into a formal administrative complaint in 2013. LabMD's revenues fell and the business itself collapsed in 2014 as clients declined renewal contracts and partners ended their agreements. However, in November 2014, an administrative law judge threw out the complaint against LabMD, citing a lack of reliability in the evidence provided by Tiversa to the FTC. This stemmed from a whistleblower complaint by a former Tiversa employee, Richard Wallace, who claimed that he was the one who breached LabMD's systems and that LabMD's data was never leaked outside of its network. He also alleged that Tiversa was responsible for the FTC complaint against LabMD, which was made in retaliation for LabMD's refusal to purchase Tiversa's monitoring services.[1] In sworn testimony, Wallace admitted to fabricating data to instill fear of breaches against "probably every company we've ever done business with".[2]
Federal probe
Following Wallace's whistleblower complaint, the federal government began probing Tiversa under allegations that it deliberately provided false information about data breaches to the FTC to retaliate against companies that declined to purchase its data protection services. The
Corporate Armor acquisition
In August 2016, Tiversa acquired Corporate Armor, a US-based IT security provider.[6]
Acquisition by Kroll Inc.
In June 2017, Tiversa was acquired by Kroll Inc. and its employees were hired to maintain the Tiversa investigation systems. In January 2019, the system was still operational and a person in England reported via Twitter: "Care to tell me why you are snooping my I.P. address?"[2]
Prominent clients
References
- ^ a b c d e Lawrence, Dune (April 25, 2016). "A Leak Wounded This Company. Fighting the Feds Finished It Off". Bloomberg News. online. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Khatchadourian, Raffi (October 28, 2019). "A cybersecurity firm's sharp rise and stunning collapse". The New Yorker. online. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
- ^ "Report: Obama helicopter security breached". NBC News. online. March 1, 2009. Retrieved October 30, 2019.
- ^ Pagliery, Jose (May 7, 2015). "Whistleblower accused cybersecurity company of exorting clients". CNN. online. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
- ^ Schectman, Joel (March 17, 2016). "Exclusive: DOJ probes allegations that Tiversa lied to FTC about data breaches". Reuters. online. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
- ^ "Corporate Armor Acquired by Tiversa". PR Newswire. August 18, 2016.
External links
- Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived April 20, 2018)