Emerging Vendors 2012: Security Vendors

Security Up And Comers

CRN's Emerging Vendors for 2012 looks at the hot tech startups rising in the channel and making their presence known through the technology industry as a whole. With threats to a company's data as well as its integrity constantly increasing, it's no surprise that this year's list includes a handful of security vendors touting everything from cloud security solutions to authentication systems. CRN is highlighting startups that are mixing unique technologies and reliable services with a strong channel presence. Here we present to you the security vendors that made the Emerging Vendors list for 2012.

AlertEnterprise

Fremont, Calif.

CEO: Jasvir Gill

AlertEnterprise makes next-generation security software to prevent fraud, theft and acts of sabotage. According to the company, its Security Convergence technology delivers enterprise identity and access management software that can automate on-boarding and off-boarding and enable active policy enforcement. Founded in 2007, AlertEnterprise says that it eliminates silos and uncovers blended threats across IT security, physical access controls and industrial control systems to protect businesses. AlertEnterprise has a large partner ecosystem through which it targets clients in a host of industries and in the public sector.

Appthority

San Francisco, Calif.

CEO: Anthony Bettini

Appthority is helping businesses identify and manage risks in their mobile applications. Its Appthority Platform uses a cloud-based behavioral analysis engine that identifies and grades mobile malware used in targeted attacks, corporate data exfiltration and intellectual property exposure. Appthority was named the winner of Most Innovative Company at the RSA Conference 2012 contest in February.

Auraya Systems

Nashua, N.H.

CEO: Clive Summerfield

We've all seen fingerprint scanners, but what about a security solution that leverages your voice? Auraya Systems, founded in 2006, is doing just that with its ArmorVox Speaker Identity System, a biometric security play that verifies a user's voice for authentication and identity management. And, Auraya is betting on the channel to get ArmorVox into the market. The company said it relies on partners to integrate its ArmorVox Speaker Identity System into phone, Web or wireless services.

Avenda Systems

Santa Clara, Calif.

CEO: Krishna Prabhakar

Avenda Systems was founded in 2006 in its quest to arm the channel with network access security solutions for wireless, wired and VPN networks. Avenda's eTIPS includes identity-based policy services, AAA functionality, guest access and NAC in a single hardware or VM appliance.

BetterCloud

Nashua, N.H.

CEO: David Politis

BetterCloud, which offers management and security tools for Google Apps users, launched earlier this year and quickly received $2.2 million in funding from CEO David Politis himself and unnamed venture capital investors. In February, BetterCloud released DomainWatch, a Google Apps security tool for domain administration management capabilities. The company has recently begun a beta release of FlashPanel, its Google Apps management tool. To expand its reach, BetterCloud in July created a Preferred Partners program, with 11 Google Apps resellers already participating, including DoIT, Master Concept, SIOS, Viwo, L Tech, Sheepdog, Excel Micro, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Technology Solutions, Orion Solutions and Damson Cloud.

Covertix

Even Yehuda, Israel

CEO: Doron Zinger

Covertix's flagship product, SmartCipher, is a file-level information rights management (IRM) application that monitors and secures confidential documents and sensitive data.

eGestalt Technologies

Santa Clara, Calif.

CEO: Mukund Surange

eGestalt Technologies developed the cloud-based SaaS solution SecureGRC and has brought in a handful of awards and acclaim for the company in the three years since it was founded. The SecureGRC solution provides PCI and HIPAA/HITECH-based security and compliance management for SMBs, as well as vulnerability assessment and risk management.

Impermium

Palo Alto, Calif.

CEO: Mark Risher

Impermium provides anti-spam technology for social networks. The company sells a subscription-based Web service that prevents and mitigates most types of suspicious and abusive transactions. The company offers real-time and batch monitoring of Web transactions. The company's RESTful Web services-based technology was developed by founders Mark Risher and Vish Ramarao, both former leaders of the Yahoo anti-spam and security teams. Impermium defines social spam as any unwanted content on a social network or in user-generated content sites. Among the abuses Impermium's service prevents are password hacking, malware placement, fake follower and friending schemes, account takeovers and bogus registration.

ITADSecurity

Dover, Mass.

CEO: Bob Rinaldi

To combat data breaches that result when hard drives containing key company information are lost or stolen, Security startup ITADSecurity has developed Watchdog, a physical security tool that monitors the network, identifying data-bearing devices and extracting information needed to conduct risk management analysis. This past spring, ITADSecurity received $75,000 in funding.

LockPath

Overland Park, Kan.

CEO: Chris Caldwell

Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) are top of mind for companies of all sizes as they look to navigate the choppy waters of regulatory compliance and risk management. LockPath's Keylight software platform offers insight into GRC by correlating security information from various data sources and pairing it with regulations and policies to measure risk. LockPath was founded in 2009 with the goal of enabling organizations to make better business decisions, the company says. LockPath has also teamed up with a host of partners, from security experts to cloud providers, to integrate the Keylight platform into their offerings.

NopSec

Brooklyn, N.Y.

CEO: Michelangelo Sidagni

NopSec is targeting the SMB market with its suite of security services and security-as-a-service plays, focusing mainly on finance, banking, law, entertainment and media. NopSec prides itself on taking a proactive approach to security by automating hacking tools to mimic intrusions on Web apps, mobile apps and wired and wireless networks. The goal is to find the vulnerabilities before the bad guys can and ensure they can't be exploited. NopSec also offers security-penetration testing services to reveal the weaknesses in customers' wired and wireless networks, Web applications and databases.

Pindrop Security

Atlanta, Ga.

CEO: Vijay Balasubramaniyan

Pindrop Security was named one of the 10 Most Innovative Companies at the 2012 RSA conference. The company's acoustical fingerprinting technology detects fraudulent calls and authenticates legitimate callers. Pindrop claims its technology is the first to "fingerprint" individual phone calls. In detecting fraud, the company's caller-ID product identifies key attributes of any phone call, including the device, call path and geographic point of origin. Pindrop's technology extracts the acoustical fingerprint and analyzes it either through software as a service or on-premise software. Beside authentication and fraud detection, features in the company's product include reporting and workflow management. Pindrop customers are in the financial services, telecommunications, healthcare and online retail industries.

Porticor

Tel Aviv, Israel

CEO: Gilad Parann-Nissany

Porticor is a security vendor focused on scalable data encryption and key management solutions to assist with regulatory standards and overall security. The company's Virtual Private Data system enables customers to encrypt their entire data layer and safely store the encryption keys using homomorphic split-key encryption technology. Each data object is encrypted with a master key and a specific key. The master key is common to all data objects of one application, whereas the second specific key is different for each data object. As the application accesses the data store, both parts of the key are used to dynamically encrypt and decrypt.

Silver Tail Systems

Menlo Park, Calif.

CEO: Timothy Eades

Silver Tail Systems is using innovative anti-fraud solutions to help online merchants. Its Silver Tail Systems Forensics lets a business owner look at how his or her website is being used by displaying the usage of the site on a per-page, per-user or per-IP level. If suspicious activity is discovered, Silver Tail Systems Forensics gives the business user a profile of the bad actors and their specific behaviors.

Tufin Technologies

Burlington, Mass.

CEO: Ruvi Kitov

Founded by firewall and business system experts, Tufin provides security life-cycle management solutions so organizations can manage their network security policy and comply with regulatory standards. Tufin partners with Check Point, Cisco, Juniper, Fortinet, F5, Blue Coat, McAfee and BMC and offers both SecureTrack and SecureChange management software.

Vaultive

New York, N.Y.

CEO: Elad Yoran

Founded in 2009, Vaultive provides solutions aimed at protecting data migrated to the cloud via Microsoft Office 365. Vaultive for Hosted Exchange is an enterprise-grade encryption solution engineered specifically for Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Microsoft Office 365 that encrypts data in real time before it leaves the corporate network.

Veracode

Burlington, Mass.

CEO: Bob Brennan

Cloud security start-up Veracode offers a cloud-based application security testing platform, as well as automated static and dynamic application security testing software and remediation services. Veracode can scan binary code to find and fix flaws based on corporate risk management policies.

Yubico

Palo Alto, Calif.

CEO: Stina Ehrensvard

Yubico is looking to change the way you think about security. Founded in 2007 in Sweden, and now with a U.S. headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., Yubico's YubiKey puts a new twist on USB technology and on authentication. The YubiKey is a USB thumb drive that, when inserted into a computer and pressed, generates a one-time password for the user to access apps and websites. The goal of YubiKey is to offer a level of authentication that eliminates the need to re-enter passwords and unlock secure environments. The hardware itself is thin, crush safe, waterproof and battery free.

Zscaler

Sunnyvale, Calif.

CEO: Jay Chaudhry

Zscaler offers its security business policy services via its Global Cloud Infrastructure as well as Web security, Web filtering, social network security, AV, Web policy management, DLP and PCI and HIPAA compliance services.

More 2012 Emerging Vendor Coverage

CRN's 2012 Emerging Vendors:
Emerging Vendors 2012: Storage
The 25 Coolest Emerging Vendors For 2012
2012 Emerging Vendors: The List