An Interview with Waylon Krush, Lunarline, Inc. Co-founder, President, and CEO: ‘We Provide Light and Structure to Solve any Cybersecurity Problem’

The Silicon Review

“We provide the solutions and staff to ensure our clients’ data is secure from the beginning.”

As cybersecurity threats increase all over the world, we’re seeing a rather significant shift in how businesses and their owners view online security. Specifically, we’re seeing thousands of businesses ramping up their security efforts and making the issue a much bigger priority.

In light of the above-mentioned scenario, we are thrilled to present Lunarline, Inc.

Lunarline provides information security/cyber security solutions to the United States federal government and commercial markets. It designs, develops, integrates, protects, documents, and trains security and information assurance for systems, devices, facilities, telecommunications, and software, as well as maintains audits. The company also provides risk-based/information security and training services, IT security and financial controls auditing, and subject matter experts programs. In addition, it offers e-government, incident response, penetration testing, physical security, risk assessment, design and implementation, and system/software QA services, as well as security engineering and contingency planning services. Further, Lunarline provides cybersecurity strategies, roadmaps, training, and execution plans for C&A transition to the risk management framework for senior leadership, risk executives, and stakeholders; develops a range of cybersecurity/RMF training and certification programs, including management and train-the-trainer courses; develops, integrates, tests, and manages real-time continuous monitoring plans; and designs, develops, configures, and maintains enterprise security operation centers, enterprise identity management solutions, and security content automation protocol solutions.

Furthermore, the company develops C&A packages for applications and general support systems; conducts annual assessments and pre-agency audits; conducts independent security control assessments/independent validation authority; develops and enhances security programs; develops, integrates, and executes security metrics; conducts enterprise risk assessments and common control selections; and develops strategic security plans and programs.

Lunarline was incorporated in 2004 and is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The company has additional offices in Washington, D.C.; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and Springdale, Maryland.

Waylon Krush, Lunarline, Inc. Co-founder/President/CEO, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review. Below is an excerpt.

Q. Why was the company set up? How did you select the vertical and decide to be a part of the global platform?

The company was developed to help solve a colossal security problem prevalent in both the government and private sectors: critical systems and software were being designed, developed, and deployed into sensitive environments, and then security was added as an afterthought, if at all. I founded Lunarline to provide our customers with the solutions and people to ensure that the data they store, transmit, or process is secure from day one. ‘Solutions Built on Security™’ is our mission so we help our customers create secure and innovative solutions through our products, services, managed services and training.

Q. How successful was your first project roll on? Share the experience.

We initially launched with an innovative secure RFID technology. While it was ultimately a product failure, looking back it opened a door to a service opportunity that helped us get off the ground. In short, we took all the failures in products, technology, and business and applied them going forward. We soon won a subcontract with a large integrator to create a secure alternative for passive and active RFID in the military. This project opened the door to many of the commercial embedded, medical device, and telecommunication cyber programs we work today.

Q. What were the grounds on which you have expanded your company and its offerings over the years?

We have worked across the DoD, Federal, and Fortune 500. As much as each sector likes to say they are different, we have found from a cyber-perspective that many of them have very similar challenges. Most security and privacy programs are underfunded, overwhelmed, and yet are expected to be able to protect their organizations from well-organized and funded criminal groups. So, we focus on our expanding offerings on where we can make the most impact while juggling our customer’s realities. We spend much of our time and resources providing automation where possible and training the organizations to be able to multiply their capabilities with the teams they already have.

Q. If you have to list five factors that have been/are the biggest asset to your organization, what would they be and why?

Our employees focus on solutions for our customers
We don’t have a one-size-fits-all or rip and replace mentality
Our tech-enabled services are built around ensuring our customers can adapt their organizations to the threat
Our solutions are built by cyber experts for cyber experts
We teach our customers to fish. We define success when our customers can secure their organizations without our help. That may sound counterproductive but we have done wonderfully on referrals and we always get called back when the organizations we support start to change

Q. What do you feel are the reasons behind your consistence growth as an organization?

We focus on security solutions for our customers – not just making money. This is probably why we still have many of the customers we had when we started almost 15 years ago and the list continues to grow – almost all by referral and word of mouth.

We have invested millions of dollars and countless hours creating a world-class School of Cyber Security and Cyber Certified Expert (CCE) program to ensure our employees and customers can meet their security and privacy mission objectives. Lunarline employees have access to all of our courses and certifications, not to mention additional funds for training and certification outside SCS.

Q. How does your company contribute to the global IT platform?

We are helping our customers secure their systems across the Government and commercial sectors – to include telecommunications, technology, finance, healthcare, transportation, and logistics. You will not see our name on the products but many of the space systems, robotics, medical devices, transportation systems, etc. have had Lunarline as part of their testing and secure development.

Q. Do you have any new products ready to be rolled out into the market?

We are creating a new product called Gravity that will work across all our current cyber and privacy tools. We are also launching new satellites into cyberspace to collect threat, malware, and vulnerability information for our customers and hunt teams.

Q. Where do you see your company a couple of years from now?

We are expecting to grow internationally as our market has grown significantly in the US over the past few years.

Waylon Krush: A Brief Background

Waylon Krush is Lunarline’s Co-founder and Hacker-in-Chief.

Mr. Krush is not the sit-at-his-desk type. Most days, you won’t even find him in the office at all. He’s happier out in the field helping Lunarline clients fight back against an ever more threatening cyber world. Some of his notable recent projects include redesigning a major federal security operations center to combat advanced persistent threats (he even pulled few night shifts), developing systems for RF/Signal/System monitoring, and creating cyber intelligence platforms for various organizations around the world.

Mr. Krush has received many awards for his notable work including Knowlton Award, DOT Cyber Security Excellence Award, AFCEA Education Foundation Honor Award, United States Marine Corp Scholastic Leadership Award, AFCEA Honor Award, 718th Military Intelligence Soldier of the Year, NSA Professional of the Quarter, Voice of America Award, and American Legion Award.

Mr. Krush has a BS in Computer Information Science from University of Maryland, University College, and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Certification and Accreditation Professional (CAP) and Certified Information Security Auditor (CISA). He also logged more than 3,000 hours of training from the National Security Agency National Cryptologic School.