Australian Cybersecurity Luminary, Mohan Koo, Receives Prestigious Award for Shaping AU-US Security Alliances

WASHINGTON, DC – January 23, 2024 — 

Mohan Koo, Co-Founder and President of DTEX Systems, the global leader for insider risk management, has been honoured for his exceptional contributions to the Australia-United States partnership at an Awards Gala at the Australian Embassy in D.C.

Ambassador Kevin Rudd presented Koo with the award. The other award recipients were David Hoey (CEO of Vaxxas), Rebecca Johnson (Chief Scientist at the Smithsonian), Abigail Allwood (Research Scientist for NASA), and Patty Mills (Basketballer for the Atlanta Hawks and philanthropist).

Koo was recognized for his influential position as a thought leader in human-centric cybersecurity, his commitment to bridging the gap between cybersecurity and privacy, and his collaboration and advocacy for best practice information sharing across the Five Eyes to fortify national security.

Pioneering Insider Risk Management: A Proactive Approach Backed by Behavioral Science and Privacy

In 2000, Koo co-founded DTEX Systems in Australia, later expanding and basing the company out of California. DTEX is now globally acknowledged as a leader in insider risk management, safeguarding the most critical infrastructure entities, businesses, and government agencies, particularly in the United States. Backed by Silicon Valley Venture Capital, DTEX’s innovative approach combines behavioral science and privacy-by-design to proactively detect and mitigate insider risks before a security incident materialises, setting it apart as a trusted cybersecurity provider.

Uniquely, DTEX has pioneered a privacy-by-design approach to cybersecurity. With most insider risks non-malicious in nature, Koo emphasises that maintaining privacy and negating bias is key to fostering a security-conscious culture and trusted workforce.

DTEX’s patented pseudonymization technique offers organizations an alternative to surveillance-based employee monitoring systems by collecting only the necessary metadata needed to detect, deter and disrupt risk and escalate appropriately before data loss occurs.

Elevating National Security Through Collaboration and Best Practice Information Sharing

Koo was also honoured for his demonstrated commitment to protecting national security across the Five Eyes by driving collaboration across government, industry, and academia to accelerate mission-critical decision making in innovation, skills development, and technology adoption.

He has been instrumental in the bridging the knowledge gap on cybersecurity as a human challenge that cuts across technology and psychology, and actively works with Five Eyes entities to foster the sharing of best practice information to genuinely enable a prevention-first approach to cybersecurity based on ‘early warning risk indicators’. This has resulted in the concept of FIRPA – The Five Eyes Insider Risk Practitioner Alliance, which aims to provide a trusted forum for sharing best practice information for insider risk practitioners and will be officially launched in September 2024.

More About Mohan Koo

Koo was born and raised in Adelaide, South Australia. Early in his career, he observed how businesses relied heavily on trust in their transition from paper to computer-based systems. While investigating fraud within a company, he anticipated the emerging opportunities in cybersecurity – and the power of behavioral science in a threat prevention capacity – long before it gained widespread recognition as a persistent issue.

Following the establishment of DTEX in Adelaide, Koo focused on catering to customers seeking enterprise-scale cybersecurity solutions grounded in behavioral science. Initially targeting the Australian market, he later expanded the company’s reach to the UK and Silicon Valley. Mohan returned to Adelaide in 2018, coinciding with his appointment by Premier Steven Marshall to South Australia’s inaugural Entrepreneurship Advisory Board.

Mohan is recognized as a thought leader in the global cybersecurity industry, displaying a passion for Australian innovation and the potential of data scientists, security specialists, and AI skills in Adelaide. Actively involved in promoting cybersecurity skills in schools, industry, and academia, he played a key role in establishing the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre. Mohan was recognised as Australian Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021 by the Pearcey Foundation, and also received the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) ‘Digital Economy’ Award for strengthening economic ties between Australia and the US in 2022.

About DTEX Systems

As the global leader for insider risk management, DTEX empowers organizations to prevent data loss and support a trusted workforce by stopping insider risks from becoming insider threats. Its InTERCEPT™ platform consolidates the essential elements of data loss prevention, user behavior analytics, and user activity monitoring in a single light-weight platform to detect and mitigate insider risks well before data loss occurs. Combining AI/ML with behavioral indicators, DTEX enables proactive insider risk management at scale without sacrificing employee privacy or network performance.