Yoav Keren is the CEO of BrandShield. The company recently announced the launch of MyShield, an anti-scam platform built on the blockchain. The open-source platform is fighting online fraud and phishing in the crypto space and e-commerce in general through community involvement and a digital rewards ecosystem. Yoav will be sharing with us, the details and opportunities of this project in this interview:
1) Could you tell us your name and about yourself?
My name is Yoav Keren, and I am the CEO of BrandShield. I have 21 years of experience in financial management, marketing and business development.
I hold an MBA from the Kellogg & Recanati business schools (Northwestern University & Tel-Aviv University), and a B.A. in Economics and Physics from the Tel-Aviv University.
I served as a Council Member at ICANN and I am still serving as a member of the anti-counterfeiting committee at INTA. In the past, I was Senior Advisor to a minister in the Israeli government. I was the head of the Technology branch of the Israeli military’s Information Security Department.
2) Tell us about Myshield and the motivation behind the brand?
MyShield is an innovative Decentralized Anti-Scam Platform with the intent to alert users whenever they stumble upon a phishing website, an online counterfeit sale, and other types of popular online scams happening today. MyShield will provide its users with alerts against scams and will perform validations for crypto transactions. The MyShield model is constructed on two sources of intelligence – reports of potential scams by users of MyShield shared with the community, and providers of AI powered cyber-intelligence, the first one to be the BrandShield cyber intelligence technology.
3) Since the platform relies heavily on users, how can you protect your company against fake scams for tokens?
First, in order to report a scam on MyShield the user has to use a token – i.e. the user has a stake in the report. This is a model equivalent to the Hash-Cash model. It is intended to prevent spamming of the system.
Additionally, the reports of potential scams by users are transparent to the public on the blockchain while cyber intelligence providers are encrypted on the same blockchain. The MyShield application is designed to autonomously communicate with all the information stored on the blockchain. The secured structure of the blockchain allows the system to inherently prevent the possibility of the stored data to be manipulated by both users, and the cyber intelligence providers.
4) How can users determine which platforms are Myshield certified?
The MyShield Trust Stamp. The stamp is a certification signature that will be provided by MyShield to only verified and validated online items such as websites or web pages, for example; a specific crypto-exchange, a listing on e-commerce marketplaces, social media accounts, and more. The MyShield Trust Stamp will, bottom-line, allow users to know that the website they have reached is genuine.
MyShield will have in place strict validation criteria that website owners, sellers on marketplaces, social media account owners, and more will need to apply for to gain a MyShield Trust Stamp. The validation process will be performed by AI-powered cyber intelligence provider validation officers, whose job is to check different information, a process similar to a “Know Your Customer” (KYC) process, in combination with a crowd validation officers.
5) How many platforms are Myshield certified worldwide?
MyShield’s partners program, that will include certification to various platforms is due to be launched in Q1 2019
6) Is Myshield a total shift away from regular Brandshield software or more of a diversification?
I and my partners founded BrandShield in 2013 as a solution to pains we have experienced in the last 18 years during our activity at ICANN, as an official domain names registrar and as a member of the anti-counterfeiting community at INTA. Our customers have kept on approaching us with a need to assist them fighting against phishing, brandjacking, fraud and counterfeits. BrandShield helps companies fight against scams while MyShield, our new consumer-facing offering will help users do the same. We see MyShield as a natural evolution in our regular course of business while the technology and opportunities that lie ahead can eventually revolutionize this whole industry. MyShield is taking BrandShield from a B2B model to a decentralized B2B2C model, providing the next level of cyber-security to users, after anti-virus and anti-spam, the Anti-Scam.
7) What exactly happens to platforms that have been identified as scams, is there a system in place to take them down?
The “takedown services” or “Enforcement Services” is another part in the Anti-Scam value chain that MyShield will revolutionize:
The Enforcement Services will be decentralized as well, thus enabling any lawyer or other professional individuals to take part in the takedown services. This marketplace will bring together both companies that are experiencing fraudulent activity and enforcers from the community, ready to keep MyShield as an ecosystem of confidence.
8) You’re asking consumers to place implicit trust in your scam detection systems what happens if there’s an error?
We are actually not asking consumers to trust any technology alone but to put their trust in MyShield’s two layers of information: Crowd wisdom and AI-powered cyber intelligence technology. If these two sources of information reach a consensus, MyShield will provide a money-back guarantee to the transactions made by MyShield subscribers.
From our experience, we know that online scams are sophisticated and continuously evolving to the level that only a combined effort can be trusted.
9) Can you assure the public that you’re the only company rolling out AI cyber intelligence as of now or in the nearest future?
MyShiled operates in a unique segment providing a decentralized anti-scam platform for users using community and AI-powered cyber intelligence. Although frauds and counterfeits in the digital space are a problem several companies have tackled, no one has ever developed cyber intelligence capabilities like BrandShield let alone implemented them in the blockchain environment. Furthermore, the blockchain based technology and crypto based concept, that is the core of the the MyShield platform, have been patented by BrandShield.
10) Can Myshield tokens be converted to more popular cryptocurrencies?
The MyShield platform is planned to be based on the Ethereum Blockchain, therefore any wallet accepting ERC20 tokens will be compatible. Obviously, the MyShiled Token will be traded in exchanges and we already have started discussing it with several.
11) Can you expatiate on your “money-back guarantee” and why the company feels the need to add that as an incentive?
MyShield will provide a money back guarantee for transactions performed on trusted websites. MyShield plans to offer additional extended guarantee programs, as well as enable multiple guarantee providers to take part in the ecosystem. The users will have the option to choose guarantee programs from the different providers.
This is a great value for users and an important part of the eco-system of confidence – it allows users to perform transactions with confidence, and be sure, that if anything happens their funds are protected.
12) How soon would this be available to the public?
Our plan is to launch the Beta version of the MyShield application at Q1 2019
13) Do you have more information for our readers?
We invite everybody to join us in the journey to create an ecosystem of confidence and join us on our social media groups on Telegram, Twitter and Facebook.
Find out more on the website: https://www.myshield.com/
