Founders: Thomas Roccia
Thomas Roccia grew up in France. He was a natural tinkerer ever since he could talk, often playing with computers and programming languages. Before he was deeply embedded in the cybersecurity world, he was sitting on the other side of the coin, 'hacking' into different projects. Breaking apart computers to understand what makes them tick and building them back up again. Malware was a new space that was developing at the time, almost like an underground scene. For Thomas it was an outlet to explore his fascination for how things could be broken. He studied malware and hardware, and eventually spent more time doing reverse-engineering in malware analysis. Understanding how things could break and more importantly what to do to prevent that. This obsession led him to an engineering school in France before completing a master's in IT security. After spending a few years in IT security, he eventually found himself working for McAfee in 2015 where he was able to witness firsthand the real work in IT protection. He worked on penetration testing and incident response before moving to McAfee Labs to work on more malware analysis and threat intelligence. To add to his repertoire, Thomas assisted law enforcement in detecting cybersecurity threats nationally and globally, in countries like India, the US, the UAE and Australia.
Thomas moved to Australia in 2021 to spearhead AI security research at Microsoft, determined to create lasting change for this new age of AI governance. What missed the mark however was the pace of execution inside a large enterprise. When Thomas was building AI agents back in 2023, his peers were lagging behind, not only in acceptance of this new technology, but also in understanding the security risks that came with it. The time lag of an enterprise combined with the bureaucratic roadblocks that hindered innovation was unbearable. Frustrated that Microsoft couldn't match his speed, Thomas started Security Break out of a love of cybersecurity and the urgency of poor security in enterprise AI adoption. Companies are desperate not to get left behind in the wake of AI deployment but often prioritise speed over security. Thomas knew this, deciding to help security teams actually understand what's happening within their AI ecosystem. Behind Security Break lies a man who's spent 15 years inside the cybersecurity world and even published a best-selling cybersecurity book.
Thomas' bold vision for the future is centred around the complete adoption of AI agents. Businesses will mainly interact with AI agents that will use data to tailor each product to people’s specific environment and preferences. As we are moving toward AI agents with more usage and agency, that also means bigger risks. The rise of AI has left a gap in the security market. Existing security solutions aren't built for AI and lack the speed to match AI's pace of development. Security Break is helping build the AI security foundation for enterprises. With Startmate, Thomas has been able to condense years of work into three months, speaking to over 110 customers and travelling to the US. Security Break has all the capabilities to become the trusted source of AI Threat Intelligence for the AI ecosystem.
