moving-target-defense
(5)
Ethan Schmertzler and the advantage of being hard to find
A psychology graduate, a furniture maker, and a cybersecurity founder walk into the same life. At Dispel, Ethan Schmertzler has spent a decade working on a practical puzzle: how to let the right people in without leaving industrial systems exposed.
The Security Company That Moves the Target
Morphisec changes the memory an attacker expects to find. Its bet is that the best time to stop ransomware is before the first malicious instruction lands.
Tracebit
Tracebit is a London-based cybersecurity company that builds cloud-native deception technology. It automatically deploys realistic decoy resources - called canaries - across a customer's cloud accounts, CI/CD pipelines, identity providers and developer workstations. Because the decoys hold no real data, any interaction with them is a high-fidelity signal that an attacker is already inside. Founded in 2023 by ex-Tessian engineers Andy Smith and Sam Cox, Tracebit aims to cut the time it takes an organisation to detect a breach from months to minutes, and has deployed millions of canaries protecting customers such as Docker, Snyk, Riot Games and Synthesia.
Dispel
Dispel is an Austin, Texas-based operational technology (OT) cybersecurity company that builds a Zero Trust Engine for industrial control systems. Its platform combines secure remote access, real-time industrial data streaming, unified OT connectivity (OTFusion), and 24/7 threat monitoring, all built around Moving Target Defense - a technique that constantly shifts network paths so attackers never get a stable target. Dispel lets manufacturers, utilities, energy operators, and government agencies give vendors and engineers fast, audited access to plant equipment without the friction of legacy VPNs and jump boxes.
Ian Schmertzler
Ian Schmertzler is co-CEO and co-founder of Dispel, an operational-technology cybersecurity company he started in 2015 with his brother Ethan. A Yale-trained industrial engineer and former crew coxswain, Ian helped build Dispel's zero trust platform around Moving Target Defense - a system that keeps shifting network access points so attackers never find a static target. He serves as a principal investigator on three NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence projects and as vice president of the National Defense Industrial Association's NY-CT chapter, working to keep factories, water utilities, and power grids running quietly and safely.