Cyware: A force multiplier for cybersecurity

In the last few years, the volume and increased sophistication of cyber attacks have created a crisis for security operations centers (SOC), exacerbated by an acute shortage of security experts.

The situation is likely to only get worse as remote work and device proliferation expand the attack surface and nation-state actors become more emboldened. Unresolved threats have major consequences.

American businesses and government agencies could be forced to spend close to $100B to address the fallout from just one recent hack against the SolarWinds software commonly used in the US. And it’s not just the breach remediation costs that pile up for organizations – it’s the preventative and proactive costs of standing up a cutting-edge cybersecurity operation that can pose a formidable challenge to attackers and protect the business. In fact, according to Gartner¹, 78% of CISOs have 16 or more tools in their cybersecurity vendor portfolio, with 12% of CISOs having 46 or more tools.

The need for better solutions and the optimization of tools and cybersecurity operations (SecOps) solutions is obvious and it is why Advent International was excited to invest in Cyware’s recently announced Series B. A four-year-old cyber security solutions platform, Cyware is a force multiplier for Threat Intelligence and SOC teams in their ability to effectively detect, mitigate and respond to cyber attacks.

One key reason for Cyware’s outsized impact to date is that it was founded by industry practitioners, Anuj Goel and Akshat Jain. Anuj, a cybersecurity veteran with over 20 years of industry experience, understood the pain points in the threat intelligence and security operations very well and knew there was an acute need for a better platform that could aggregate multiple sources of threat data to contextualize and prioritize actions based on business risk.

Anuj also knew that quality intelligence data had to be married with the right actions to produce desired outcomes.

This is where Cyware’s automated orchestration and response tool, that connects the various IT, DevOps, and Security applications within a client environment, comes into play. Cyware undertakes an agnostic approach in matching the solution to the threat, directed only by the appropriateness of the software to neutralize the threat at hand.

Part of Cyware’s success stems from its unique relationship with Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) in major industry sectors where it has displaced prior threat intelligence platforms. In addition to providing ISACs with improved telemetry and contextualization of threats facing underlying sectors, benefitting both the ISACs and their member organizations, it has also created a network effect where the greater access to high-confidence actionable threat data continues to strengthen the efficacy of the core threat intelligence platform. As a result, more and more ISACs are switching to Cyware to be a part of Cyware’s “Network of Threat Sharing Networks” wherein they can experience fully automated cross-sector sharing and collaboration with their sectoral counterparts, National CERTs, security alliances, and association groups. You can see the strength of these partnerships as an example with H-ISAC where they are solving these challenges at scale.

With Cyware’s triple-digit growth over the last three years, we are excited about what lies ahead for the company. In addition to its core product, it has also released a new out-of-the-box threat intelligence platform for upper mid-market customers to democratize access to threat intelligence for all companies, not just the largest 5% players.

We are thrilled to partner with Anuj and team on this next phase in their journey and look forward to working with the strong line up of strategic advisors and investors around the company, including TenEleven Ventures, Tanium, Zscaler, Prelude, Emerald Development Managers, and Great Road Holdings. I expand more on this topic in Cyware’s new CyberCast podcast series in one of their latest episodes.

¹ Gartner, Cost-Optimizing the Cybersecurity Vendor Portfolio, November, 2020.