This month, we’re excited to feature Ashwini Rao, CEO and founder of Eydle, a scam protection platform that protects customers and employees of an enterprise from scams, like online impersonation or phishing. She was formerly the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Spring Labs and has worked in engineering and leadership roles for Fortune 500 companies such as Qualcomm and Appian. Ashwini holds a PhD and master's degree in computer science and security from TU Munich, Carnegie Mellon, and IIT Bombay.

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1. What inspired you to start Eydle, and how does it help organizations stay ahead of online scams?

I'm passionate about building products that help people in real life, and a serious problem I’ve been working on is scams. Scams have become very common and they cost individuals, companies, and even governments billions of dollars. Scammers often target the most vulnerable people, like the elderly with financial scams or the younger population with money mule scams. 

Money mule scams can happen in a few different ways. A common one is when scammers offer fake jobs online through social media or text messages, claiming that you can make quick money by receiving and sending payments. They ask you to use your bank account or a payment app to transfer money to them, but that money is actually stolen funds. By moving it, you could unknowingly be helping with a crime.

While scams used to mainly show up in emails and texts, recent exponential growth is occurring through social media, app stores, and online ads. Newer scams use visually rich content, images, and videos to trick people, and existing solutions weren’t doing a good job of stopping them. So at Eydle, we built something new that can spot and shut down these kinds of scams before they cause harm.

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2. With the evolution and growing use of artificial intelligence (AI), how has your company adopted the use of this technology to improve your services?

The core of what Eydle does is provide an AI-driven Deep Learning technology for automated visual analysis at scale to enable fast detection and takedown of scams. In other words, the technology can look at tons of pictures and videos really fast to find and take down scams. When you and I look at two images, how do we decide that they look similar? Since a lot of scams now use images and videos to trick people, it’s not possible for humans to catch them all one by one. That’s where Eydle’s technology comes in – it automatically finds and takes down scams across different online channels before they can become a bigger problem.

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3. Based on your experience as a founder and mentor, what challenges do women face in cybersecurity, and what can help them succeed?

Women in cybersecurity don't often see role models of women in high positions, and that can sometimes lead to a mentality of setting sights low. My message is: aim high and be vocal. In my experience, there is always someone willing to help whether or not they look like us. It is important to reach out and apply for opportunities.  

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4. As a founding fellow of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Tech & Entrepreneurship, you mentor early-stage founders. What’s one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from launching your own startup?

My startup sells its product to large companies known as enterprises. It can be a big feat to get a business contract with a large enterprise as a small business - it can sometimes take years. The waiting period can be very discouraging and can dissuade founders from trying. In our case, we landed a valuable contract with one of the world's top 5 companies early on. So, the lesson I learned is to keep trying even when it is challenging.

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5. You’ve worked at the intersection of cybersecurity, AI, and startups. For young people curious about cybersecurity but unsure where to start, what practical steps can they take to explore and build skills? Are there any resources or habits that helped you early on?

There are many cybersecurity classes available online, including bite-sized learning options that are less than $30 – and in some cases even free. And, many are set up to learn at your own pace. Online classes provide an opportunity for structured learning, which I find very helpful. If you are in college, an internship related to security can give you a meaningful chance to explore cybersecurity to see if it is a career path you want to pursue.