Virta Labs wins SPARK's Entrepreneur Boot Camp

Cyber attacks are becoming more and more ubiquitous, and one new startup in Ann Arbor is capitalizing on it, Virta Labs.

The 7-month-old startup helps defend medical devices from malware attacks. It recently won the Best of Boot Camp award at Ann Arbor SPARK’s most recent Entrepreneur Boot Camp.

"Malware is everywhere today," says Denis Foo Kune, co-founder of Virta Labs. "Medical devices are more susceptible to malware than most devices because there may not be much protection out there for them."

Virta Labs got its start with the research from a University of Massachusetts PhD student on the subject, and his advisor who is now a professor at the University of Michigan. The six-person team behind the startup is working on a detection technology for malware and other software anomalies on medical devices and process control systems. It accomplishes this by measuring the power consumption patterns of the machines it is protecting.

Because most medical devices rely on commodity operating systems, leaving them vulnerable to a garden variety of malware. Virta Labs' technology helps keep these at bay through early detection.

"We're going to be starting our Beta test very soon," says Michael Holt, business strategist of Virta Labs.

Source: Denis Foo Kune, co-founder of Virta Labs and Michael Holt, business strategist of Virta Labs
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.