MyRISK launches disruptive cybersecurity platform with Oracle APEX

Based in Australia, MyRISK is a data analytics startup specializing in cybersecurity governance. The company’s HyperGRC platform for governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) is built by cyber-risk professionals for cyber-risk professionals. It uses machine learning to help close cyber governance and risk knowledge gaps, quantify the risk, determine the next steps, and hyperautomate workflows. Focused on providing digital resilience and efficiency, the organization’s mission is to make a $1 billion reduction in cybersecurity risk across its customer base over the next two years.

MyRISK was founded to address a gap in the cybersecurity market. Most other products were either enterprise risk or compliance-focused, rather than cyber-focused and machine learning automated. And, due to the scale and complexity of many IT environments and the ever-changing cyberthreat landscape, security leaders didn’t have complete information about their IT services and assets or the threats they were facing. Moreover, many of their companies’ security strategies were subjective, making it difficult to determine which improvements to make next. These strategies also required a high level of expertise, posing an even greater challenge with the shortage of cyber professionals.

The company’s founders saw an opportunity to help thwart growing security challenges, but building a platform that could address them was no easy task. Typical data analytics development stacks involve many technical layers, such as a customer-facing front end, API mediation, a business services layer, and identity management. What MyRISK wanted was a robust environment that would allow for low-cost delivery and faster time to market to gain the first-mover advantage.

After spending more than a year of trial and error without finding the right tools to meet its requirements, MyRISK began investigating low-code providers named in the Gartner Magic Quadrant report. After eliminating multiple vendors due to high costs and a lack of functionality, the company selected Oracle APEX and Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing for their security, flexibility, and future-proof capabilities.

The company’s architectural design of its HyperGRC platform drove its selection of Oracle APEX, which would provide a low-code, low-cost environment for faster, simpler development. The tool also aligned with the company’s vision of being API-first and multitenant while allowing for integration to Python and other data sources.

In addition, because APEX is built into Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing, it would further streamline the application development process, eliminating much of the manual coding work required. The unified environment supports many other Oracle services, including Machine Learning in Oracle Database and Oracle Visual Builder Studio, which would prove critical in building and deploying the cybersecurity platform for customers.

In 2020, MyRISK joined the Oracle for Startups program to gain added support for its application development and build a proof of concept. Its platform became one of the first full-scale applications to tie APEX with Oracle Virtual Private Database, Oracle Machine Learning, and Oracle Visual Builder Studio.

Near the end of 2022, MyRISK launched its state-of-the-art multitenant SaaS cybersecurity platform in roughly half the time required by its closest competitors and at a quarter of the costs. Thanks to Oracle’s unified technology, the company was able to offer customers a cyber GRC platform that brought automation to the forefront of security. It used machine learning to identify gaps, quantify the risks, enable what-if analyses, and provide a full workflow to help address problems. This helped customers automate their cyber governance processes, gain a more complete picture of their security posture, and quickly update their IT environment to help future-proof against threats.

MyRISK’s APEX application used a number of converged database features within Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing to simplify data management for multiple data types, enhance security, and REST-enable all the data for faster access. The database’s high performance not only allowed for rapid development in the building stage, but also generated system response times of less than a second so customers enjoy a better user experience.

The application also supported sophisticated machine learning capabilities, allowing MyRISK’s developers to tap prebuilt models within Oracle Machine Learning and write their own algorithms using its Python integration. Because machine learning and automation are among the company’s key differentiators in the market, this functionality was critical.

On the front end, Oracle APEX helped developers create an easy-to-use interface for customers with powerful design tools. The MyRISK application can be accessed using a central menu that seamlessly integrates separate applications for each cybersecurity function.

Oracle APEX’s low-code environment provided the ideal space for developers to rapidly deploy cutting-edge functionality. After its launch, the company used Oracle Visual Builder Studio’s continuous integration and continuous delivery automation capabilities to roll out daily updates to enhance the platform, and work is already underway to launch additional features.

MyRISK is part of the Oracle for Startups program, giving the company access to Oracle Machine Learning and Oracle APEX teams. The collaboration helped accelerate development of the MyRISK HyperGRC platform.