"My involvement with Anonymous had been around digital privacy activism ... but in the 1990s I worked in risk management ... then in corporate consulting roles for over a decade and I did contracted work all over the world."

Red Piranha's Crystal Eye platform aims to simplify cyber security for SMBs by offering a single platform that combines all the cyber security functions a company would otherwise need to source from different vendors.

Mr Bennett started working on the business in 2014, but only launched a few months ago and has already grown his team to 55.

At the time of his arrest, he had been working for a cancer charity while operating under the online name Lorax.

Mr Bennett was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and 200 hours of community service, as well as an intensive supervision order, for offences that occurred in 2012 as part of the global Guy Fawkes Night campaign organised by Anonymous. Shutterstock.com

But the hacker has turned over a new leaf and Mr Bennett said he created Red Piranha because he was frustrated by the lack of cyber security solutions suitable for SMBs.

"In the SME space the offerings were very limited and I was having to build and automate systems for people," he said.

"I'm trying to bring top-end security for mid and small-sized companies which make up the majority of businesses."


Red Piranha's products are sold through managed service providers, which then provide businesses with all the monitoring and reporting functions they need to maintain their cyber security defences.

Within the next few years the business intends to have also established a presence in the US, UK and Europe.

Internet of things

While Mr Bennett is no longer involved with Anonymous, data privacy is still an issue he's passionate about.

He said he was pleased to see governments taking more regulatory action with schemes such as the Notifiable Data Breach laws and Europe's General Data Protection Regulation.

"When you calculate what your digital footprint is worth, it's a lot of money. If it was a commodity like gold or silver, you'd take great steps to protect it and you'd expect companies to protect your worth too," he said.

He said a big risk to privacy would come from the rise of internet of things devices, referencing the case of an unnamed casino being hacked because of a vulnerability in a thermostat in a fish tank at the venue.

"By increasing the amount of devices in our lives and businesses we increase the threat landscape, which is the space that attackers can get into," he said.

"With IoT the problem is with the small devices that aren't updated."