The makers of the cutting edge product Cocoon, Virtual World Computing and company leader Jeff Bermant are making web surfing private and secure.
Tell us a little bit about Cocoon?
Cocoon was designed to be a better way to browse the web. I’d had the computers at my business get shut down with Viruses and I felt like there had to be a better way. Browsers provide far too much access to the websites you visit, making you vulnerable to viruses, malware and tracking by every website you visit. Cocoon allows you to be private, secure and virus free on the web.
Describe to readers how the service works?
Cocoon works as a smart proxy service between you and the web. It hides your ip address, blocks malware, scans downloads for viruses and prevents websites from tracking you. Plus it connects all your browsing via your own “private cloud”. We host our own servers and everything you do within Cocoon is encrypted for your privacy.
How do you see Cocoon being utilized by businesses and individuals?
Most of us bounce from device to device, office to home, etc. Cocoon lets you access the same browsing history from each device which when researching can be an incredible advantage. You can even access the info on your iPhone or iPad (Android is being developed). Plus you are able to use the notes feature to leave yourself a note on a particular webpage as well as use the password storage feature to allow you to keep varied and complex passwords for each site you log into.
What is the advantage of keeping these passwords secured online?
Best practices for password security are to have different and complex passwords for each site we use. Sadly most of us have so many sites we use, we often reuse passwords. When a site gets hacked and there is a breach in usernames and passwords, as recently happened with LinkedIn, those passwords and logins can be used to test against other websites leaving everyone vulnerable. This is a full time business for criminals around the world. Once they have access to your accounts you are at risk of identity theft.
What are the safety measures undertaken by the company to ensure that passwords aren’t leaked?
The fact that we host our own servers and are not just using a server cloud farm gives us much better control to start with. Our network security includes the use of multiple firewalls with strict minimum access protocols, databases and other critical systems isolated from the public Internet. Each service component executes in its own “sandbox,” like a sealed vault. Some of these sandboxes utilize a variant of SE Linux, the military-grade, hardened Linux developed by NSA and the security community.
What other features does Cocoon offer regarding online storage?
Mailslots are an incredibly useful feature and fits with our privacy and security focus. It seems like every web service you go to asks for your email address. Aside from being invasive, this also opens you up to being a target for phishing attacks. Cocoon allows you to create anonymous email addresses you can use to sign up for services keeping your own email private. These Mailslot email addresses are inbound only and are easily managed from within Cocoon. I get a lot of newsletters and love having a different mailslot for each newsletter. This way they are grouped together for easy reading plus I can just delete the mailslot when I want off that mailing list.