10 Emerging Security Vendors You Need To Know About
Defending The Wall
Hardly a week goes by without another horror story of a business, organization or government agency getting hacked. The sizes of the security breaches are getting bigger (the recently disclosed cyberattack on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management exposed the information of 21.5 million people, for example). And the attacks are coming from more sources, possibly including states like China and North Korea, along with more familiar cybercriminals and vandals.
The good news is that while the number and types of cyberattacks have increased, so has the range of IT security technologies being developed to protect the IT systems of businesses, government agencies and other organizations. Security technology, not surprisingly, is one of the hottest segments of the IT industry.
This year's CRN Emerging Vendors list has nearly 40 security startups. Here's a look at 10 that particularly caught our attention.
CipherCloud
San Jose, Calif.
Top Executive: CEO Pravin Kothari
CipherCloud develops technology that organizations use to encrypt sensitive information and store it in the cloud, avoiding data privacy, residency, security and regulatory compliance risks. The vendor's platform includes AES 256-bit encryption, tokenization, data loss prevention and malware detection capabilities.
In June, CipherCloud announced its next-generation tokenization technology that protects sensitive data by replacing clear text data with a random "token" that bears no mathematical relationship to the original data.
CrowdStrike
Irvine, Calif.
Top Executive: President and CEO George Kurtz
CrowdStrike is a developer of next-generation endpoint security technology and services focused on identifying advanced threats and targeted attacks. The cloud-based CrowdStrike Falcon platform uses execution profiling and predictive security analytic capabilities to identify unknown malware, detect zero-day threats and prevent damage from targeted attacks in realtime.
Earlier this month, CrowdStrike landed $100 million in Series C funding, some of which the company plans on investing in its growing channel program.
Exabeam
San Mateo, Calif.
Top Executive: Nir Polak
Exabeam uses advanced behavior analytics to unlock the potential of existing security information and event management (SIEM), and log management data repositories, enabling IT security teams to more quickly detect and respond to cyberattacks and insider threats in realtime.
Exabeam is 100 percent channel-focused, and the company plans to invest money from an upcoming Series B round of funding into further developing its growing channel program. The company already has brought in top channel management talent, including former Imperva channel chief Ted Plumis as vice president of channels, business and corporate development.
FinalCode
San Jose, Calif.
Top Executive: CEO Gord Boyce
Security technology startup FinalCode offers what it describes as the ultimate means to secure sensitive files anywhere inside or outside a corporate network. Based on the patented CryptoEase technology, FinalCode provides user-defined and corporate policy-enforced file security with granular controls and the ability to remotely delete files.
FinalCode hired Boyce, previously CEO of network security vendor ForeScout Technologies, in February to be its CEO. That was followed by FinalCode's exit from stealth mode in April to compete with Box and Dropbox with its enterprise-grade, file-sharing security offering.
Hexis Cyber Solutions
Hanover, Md.
Top Executive: President Chris Fedde
Hexis Cyber Solutions provides advanced cybersecurity technology and services that help businesses and government agencies defend against cyberthreats. The company's HawkEye products include realtime endpoint sensors, network detection and threat analytics technology for automated threat detection and response.
Hexis Cyber Solutions was born out of several acquisitions by parent company KEYW Holding Corp., which specializes in cybersecurity for the federal government.
LightCyber
Los Altos, Calif. and Ramat Gan, Israel
Top Executive: CEO Gonen Fink
LightCyber's Magna active breach detection platform identifies active cyberattacks that have circumvented traditional threat prevention systems. LightCyber Magna simultaneously profiles network traffic and endpoint state to identify compromised user accounts and devices.
The company currently works with approximately 15 partners in the U.S., but is looking to expand that number going forward.
Pulse Secure
San Jose, Calif.
Top Executive: CEO Sudhakar Ramakrishna
Pulse Secure split off from Juniper Networks in October 2014. In May, former Citrix executive Sudhakar Ramakrishna was named CEO of the new company. Also in June the company launched its channel program.
Pulse Secure develops access and mobile security systems for enterprises and service providers. The vendor provides an SSL virtual private network, unified network access control, workspace virtualized application containerization on mobile devices and other mobile security products.
Twistlock
San Francisco
Top Executive: CEO Ben Bernstein
Twistlock is developing technology for securing software containers, providing control of, and visibility into, applications running in Linux containers. As container technology from Docker and other vendors becomes more pervasive in the data center, the need to secure those containers is seen as a growing challenge.
The company, which also has an office in Tel Aviv, Israel, officially launched in May with $2.5 million in seed funding.
vArmour
Mountain View, Calif.
Top Executive: CEO Timothy Eades
vArmour is among a new generation of security technology vendors that is moving security into the data center, in contrast to the traditional focus on perimeter security. As more virtualized and cloud IT assets operate in a world without perimeters, the old way of securing IT processes, applications and infrastructure doesn't cut it.
In May, the company launched its global channel partner program, vArmour Invited Partners (VIP), for solution and service providers. vArmour already has recruited Atos, Big Technology and EVT as partners.
Vijilian Security
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Top Executive: CEO Rogerio Reis
Vijilan offers managed security services that solution providers and managed solution providers can "white label" to deliver 24/7 security monitoring, detection and response services to their customers. The services are based on a combination of proprietary and commercial security technologies.
Vijilan follows a 100 percent channel business model.