Edinburgh-based startup Zortrex has launched a hacker disruption system dubbed the Zortrex Token Vault.

It is designed to create a series of placeholder ‘tokens’ that replace private financial information with a randomly generated string of data.

Tokenisation then mitigates the impact of cyber attacks by causing hackers to access these strings rather than important and confidential information.

The system is said to close security gaps and help to defend against large data breaches that can affect millions of people around the world.

It does not rely on encryption to generate the token, so organisations do not have to manage cryptographic systems to secure sensitive data – security travels with the data while it is at rest and in motion.

As a result, no additional security methods are required to provide protection when information leaves an organisation, according to Zortex.

Executive chair and founder of Zortrex, Susan Brown, believes tokenisation is the only effective way to protect sensitive data.

She said: “It’s evident that, despite some of the world’s brilliant minds continuously working to combat the threats posed by cyber attacks, it’s nigh on impossible to stop cyber criminals from launching digital attacks.

“The only real way to achieve a state where sensitive data is truly protected is to devalue it through tokenisation – if tokenised data is lost or stolen, it is useless to hackers.”

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The new system is designed to protect organisations in all sectors and reduce the cost and complexity of defending against cyber attacks.

Brown continued: “With Zortrex Token Vault, we have massive scalability and the ability to tokenise any piece of data, across any industry. The future applications are endless, not only in terms of data security – but in combating fraud.

“Put simply, any individual, organisation or public sector body that handles sensitive information should, without question, use tokenisation to ensure compliance, reduce risk and keep that data secure.”