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Who We Are

 

Myntex has been a global contender since mobile encryption emerged onto the market, but our manner of doing business has been what’s set us apart from the rest. We believe that running a legitimate, honest, and transparent business is key to gaining the trust and respect of our partners, customers, and competitors.

We have always been open with our intentions to make encryption readily available to everyone around the globe and we have never bought into blocking other providers, causing drama, or talking down about others in the industry. We feel that providing the best product coupled with the best customer service is key to healthy growth of our brand.

 

We operate our office and data center in Calgary, Alberta where we extend an open invitation to our partners, customers, and anyone else that is interested in learning about encryption. We don’t hide behind a website, or contact form but encourage people to come in to meet our team, and see our beautiful space.

 

Our data center is more than capable of handling the trials and tribulations that go along with running mission-critical services for our customers. You can read more about our data center here.

 

The Myntex office/data center is packed full of intriguing and fun things to help with morale, and encourage creativity. No one wants to come into boring a cubicle ridden office.

The sole purpose of creating our office the way we did was to make it welcoming to our current, and prospective partners and customers. We also want the place we work to reflect our business morals, and goals; to be fun, engaging, and modern.

 

With leading edge technology, world class customer support, 99.9% service up-time, and some of the brightest minds in the encryption industry we can confidently say that if you are looking to represent a brand, Myntex should be your first choice.

 

We would love to hear from you, feel free to get in touch with us!

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Myntex Protect its Customers from Cyber Attacks. Here’s How.

Anyone with a computer or internet connection is vulnerable to a cyber attack. The motives behind these attacks vary, but generally the goal of hackers is to disable a network or service, expose confidential information, demand a ransom or steal private data. No matter the motivation, it’s always illegal and it’s becoming more and more common.

As a PGP encryption provider and a global business, Myntex is the target of something called a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. In this post we’ll explore what a DDoS attack is and how Myntex has taken all the necessary steps to protect its customers.

 

What is a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack happens when a hacker (or often a team of hackers) “flood” a network with requests and information in a bid to make a service unavailable. This flood overwhelms the server of a company or organization, and effectively takes it out of service. It’s illegal, but happens regularly, and it’s extremely difficult to track down the perpetrators because the attack usually comes from many different sources.

Before launching the attack, hackers will build a network of infected computers. These infected computers are called bots and when collectively used together they form a “botnet.” The hackers spread malware via emails and social media (read our last post about the dangers of phishing). Once they have a large enough botnet, hackers can use their army of computers to launch a coordinated attack.

Large-scale operations are often the target of DDoS attacks, including banks and health care systems. Many of the high-profile cyber incidents you’ve read about were most likely DDoS attacks.

 

How does Myntex protect its customers?  

We’re acutely aware of the threat of DDoS attacks. Keeping the data of our customers private and secure is our utmost priority. We protect PGP encryption customers with a two-prong approach.

First, only authorized individuals have the ability to communicate with the Myntex infrastructure, via our whitelist. This largely prevents DDoS attacks. Random computers don’t have the ability to launch an attack because we drop all unauthorized traffic from our system.

Second, we use Radware DDoS protection to further mitigate the threat of attacks.

Radware is a large and respected company that protects leading global businesses, as well as governments, from large-scale attacks.

Radware has the ability to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks as they are unfolding in real time and respond within seconds. They filter requests to our service, which gives us clean traffic. In turn, our infrastructure is protected and so are our customers.

Our customers retain their ability to communicate securely and privately using PGP encryption for BlackBerry.

 

 

Do you have more questions about how we protect customers from cyber attacks? Get in touch.

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How to Guard Your Privacy Online: 5 Quick Tips

It can feel impossible to do anything online anymore without opening yourself up to significant privacy and security threats. Even without large-scale hacking incidents or government surveillance to worry about, there are still threats like email spam, which is both annoying and potentially dangerous.

Many of us take a relaxed approach to our online activities, perhaps because the threats to our privacy may not feel real or immediate. But everything we do leaves a digital footprint. And if we’re not careful, our information can be used against us as we lose access to email accounts and bank account passwords, or become victims of identity theft.

Consider taking these steps to guard your privacy online.

 

Never connect to an unsecured wifi network.

 It’s tempting to connect to an open wifi network as you sit in a coffee shop or a train station, but this is never a good idea. While secure networks are generally connected to a router, open wifi networks are often connected to other computers. Your personal information on your computer is at risk of being stolen or hacked the moment you connect to that open network.

 The safest thing to do is disable your wifi entirely on your phone until you know you can access a secure network, or to set up a VPN.

 

Online shop using only secure sites.

 Any reputable site will use the security protocol SSL for its online financial transactions. You’ll know that a site is using SSL when you look at the website address: it should say HTTPS at the beginning and you should also see a padlock icon. If these two things aren’t present, think twice before handing over your credit card information.

 

Take an honest look at your online activities.

 Be wary of any and all interactions. Thousands of people fall victim to scams on Facebook or via email, because they don’t stop to question what they’re doing. If you get a desperate Facebook message from a friend asking for a money, pick up your phone and call them to verify that they’re actually in trouble.

If you get an email from who you think is a trusted source, but something still feels off, inspect it carefully. Often, scammers will buy domain names that closely resemble one you’re familiar with, so that email addresses appear legitimate. This is called phishing. Inspect the email before you click any links. Always think twice before downloading any attachment.

A large-scale hacking incident at the University of Calgary in Canada, which led to the school forking over a $20,000 ransom payment to the hackers, likely started with a phishing email. A malware attack that crippled the NHS, the UK’s national health system, likely also began when a staff member opened a suspicious attachment.

When it comes to social media, carefully consider what you share online, including your location and personal details about your life and family.

 

Use strong passwords.

 Human errors or failings play a big role in online privacy breaches. Most of us choose passwords that we can remember, which means we choose passwords that are easy to crack. Coming up with a strong password needs to be your first priority. It should be a minimum of eight characters and include a capital letter, symbol and a number.

Don’t use the same one for every account. Avoid including obvious aspects of your life such as your spouse’s or pet’s name, or your date of birth. Never, ever use “password” as your password.

 

Use an encrypted mobile phone for secure email.

 Common email providers such as Gmail or Outlook are notoriously insecure.

 With the use of PGP encryption, BlackBerry users can send encrypted email messages that only the intended recipient can decrypt and read. Because messages between PGP BlackBerry devices are encrypted, an intercepted message is meaningless and unreadable. It’s the securest way to communicate privately.

 

Interested in learning more about PGP encryption? Click here

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Why Myntex Owns Their Canadian Data Centre (and Why That’s Important)

Unlike many encrypted email providers, Myntex houses their servers onsite at our Canadian headquarters. We’d like to explain why having our data centre on the premises is significant, and how this influences how users ultimately choose between encryption providers.

 

We have total control over our servers

Because our data centre is located in our headquarters, we have total control over it. In the event of an issue arising, we can be onsite immediately to troubleshoot the problem. We keep the servers running smoothly, installing critical updates ourselves, controlling the heating, cooling and humidity, and ensuring we have disaster recovery plans in place.

This means fewer interruptions to PGP BlackBerry encryption services for users.

DDOS attacks are a massive problem for communication companies. Competitors, activists and hackers launch DDOS attacks to disrupt users’ service and sometimes even to test exploitable networks. Running your own data centre means you can use multiple methods of DDOS protection with flexible mitigation options.

Our office is located in Canada, so we benefit from laws that protect the digital privacy rights of citizens. Canadian laws aren’t as invasive as those in other countries. If law enforcement wanted to gain access to our servers, they would need a warrant.

Of course, even if Canadian authorities did gain a warrant, they wouldn’t be able to access any emails because they are deleted every 24 hours and without access to the PGP keys, decryption is impossible (more on that later).

 

No security in unstable countries

Unauthorized access to data centres is a real threat in less stable countries. Unfortunately, many encryption providers choose to house their servers in countries different than their headquarters. They may not own their own data centre, as this is a significant investment, so they co-locate in someone else’s data centre. This is incredibly risky for several reasons.

Unstable countries often have unstable governments, who are more likely to bribe a data centre employee for access to their servers. Your data may feel safe until it’s not. As well, there’s no one onsite from the PGP encryption provider to keep tabs on equipment failure, tampering or theft.

 

We don’t actually host data

It’s important to note that all data that comes through Myntex’s servers is encrypted. The encrypted email service is also subject to an automatic delete policy, which means emails are wiped every 24 hours. No one’s data sits needlessly on our servers.

 

Have more questions about our Canadian data centre? We’re happy to chat. Get in touch.