A company started in Vicksburg is out to change how consumers approach computer security.

Seventh Knight, which was started by Luke Koestler in Vicksburg and is now based in Ridegeland, recently partnered with Intel to develop a new security tool called AppMoat to help businesses secure their systems without the need for antivirus software.

“Intel has a technology called SGX that is built into their chips and the concept is that with AppMoat and SGX, the hardware protects the security software and the security software protects the operating system,” Koestler, the CEO and lead developer at Seventh Knight, said. “The end result is you have an endpoint security solution that businesses can run where the software and the hardware are working together instead of just having a layer of software like an antivirus to secure the computer.”

Seventh Knight was started in January of 2000 and originally worked with the Department of Defense. They have continued to expand in the years since and originally gained notoriety by developing software to protect gamers’ computers without slowing down their systems.

“Instead of scanning and constantly updating the database of what it thinks is bad, our technology allows trusted applications to access your data and other applications can run, but can’t access your data unless you agree to trust them,” Koestler said. “It is sort of like how your cellphone works when you install a new app and it asks if this application can have access to your contacts for example.”

The product is now sold in 5,200 GameStop stores nationwide and also on Steam, an online marketplace for gamers. Koestler said he believes it was through the success of their original product that Intel found them and reached out.

“It gives us another level of credibility. We already had a series of patents and we’ve done government projects in the past, but I would say it sort of makes Seventh Knight a major player in the enterprise space,” Koestler said of working with Intel.

Their initial product was targeted at individual consumers, but the target audience of AppMoat is enterprise customers with large numbers of computers.

“Enterprise would be anyone with more than 1,000 computers. Universities, hospital, really anyone with a high computer count,” Koestler said. “Right now we are signing up resellers and it should be available for purchase sometime in early February.”

The goal with AppMoat is to protect computers from any threat, not just the ones known by an antivirus’s database.

“Essentially what AppMoat does is it allows you to run any kind of software that a user might want to use without infecting your system. Where products like antivirus sort of have to know what is bad to protect you, AppMoat does not,” Koestler said.