CyberOak wasn't built as a business idea. It was built because people were losing their life savings — and someone with the skills to help decided to.
For nearly two decades, Mukesh has been the person organisations call when they're under attack. He has led threat detection and response, incident investigations, and enterprise-wide security programmes — defending critical systems against sophisticated, well-funded adversaries.
What he couldn't defend against was the scammer calling his neighbour at 9pm, posing as the CBI. Or the WhatsApp message that nearly convinced a retired teacher to part with her savings for a "prize." That gap — between enterprise-grade security knowledge and the ordinary person holding a phone — is exactly what CyberOak exists to close.
He built Kavach the way he'd protect a large enterprise — with real threat intelligence and live link analysis — except this time it's free, it lives on WhatsApp, and it's built for your parents too.
I've spent close to two decades in cybersecurity, protecting enterprises and critical systems from sophisticated attacks. I know how criminals operate online — the tactics, the psychology, the technical tricks.
None of that prepared me for watching someone I know break down after losing everything to a scam on WhatsApp.
It wasn't a lack of intelligence that got them. It was a lack of access — to the right information, at the right moment, in a language they understood. The scammer called with urgency and fear, and there was no one to call back and say, simply: "This is fake. Put the phone down."
That's the gap CyberOak fills. Not a complicated app. Not a subscription. Just a number you can forward anything to, and get a straight answer in under a minute — in Hindi or English, any time of day or night.
I put the same quality of threat intelligence I'd deploy for a large enterprise into the hands of the person who needs it most: your parents, your neighbours, anyone who deserves protection but can't afford a consultant.
Simply to help. That's the whole reason.
To make professional-grade scam detection available to every ordinary Indian — regardless of technical knowledge, age or language — through the apps they already use, at no cost.
A Bharat where no family loses their savings to a digital scam, because everyone has a trusted, always-available place to check before they act.