Content by Michael Novinson

Netskope CEO on the Security Perks, Perils of Generative AI

Michael Novinson  •  August 7, 2023

Generative AI can detect malicious behavior undetectable by traditional forms of AI such as adversaries stealing sensitive data by sticking it in images, said Netskope CEO Sanjay Beri. Netskope has over 50 machine-learning models in production and has debuted AI-based DLP and threat detection tools.

OpenText Exec on What the Micro Focus Buy Means for Security

Michael Novinson  •  August 7, 2023

OpenText acquired several cyber companies in recent years to protect sensitive information and data everywhere from consumer to large enterprise environments, said EVP Prentiss Donohue. The Micro Focus buy shored up OpenText's offerings around application and data security and identity management.

WatchGuard CEO Prakash Panjwani on Making XDR Easy for MSPs

Michael Novinson  •  August 4, 2023

WatchGuard's presence on both the endpoint and network allows the company to accelerate response and remediation times on behalf of MSPs, CEO Prakash Panjwani said. MSPs can determine how much of the response they want WatchGuard to automate based on their level of sophistication.

Kate Bolseth on Why Fortra Has Aggressively Sought Cyber M&A

Michael Novinson  •  August 4, 2023

Fortra has pursued acquisitions in the infrastructure protection, data protection, and digital risk and email protection markets to help customers improve security posture. CEO Kate Bolseth said clients told Fortra they had challenges within segments such as security awareness and managed services.

How Generative AI Helps Clients Harden Their Attack Surface

Michael Novinson  •  August 4, 2023

ServiceNow wants to apply generative AI to its knowledge around how customer environments are configured to help organizations harden their digital attack surface. Security product leader Lou Fiorello said ServiceNow will use generative AI to leverage its presence across the entire enterprise.

Fortinet Sales Growth Slows as Enterprise Deals Get Delayed

Michael Novinson  •  August 3, 2023

A delay in finalizing enterprise deals and a shorter average contract duration have forced Fortinet to lower its sales forecast going forward. The Silicon Valley-based platform security vendor said average contract length shortened from 29.5 months to 28 months in the fiscal quarter ended June 30.

Why Privacy, Device Management Are Better VC Bets Than Cloud

Michael Novinson  •  August 3, 2023

Ten Eleven Ventures' Alex Doll sees privacy and device management as the hottest areas for security startups and cloud companies as "coming from behind." Advancements in privacy-enhanced technologies have allowed for searchable encryption, meaning that entire databases can be locked down.

Infoblox CEO on Bringing DNS Protection to Domain Monitoring

Michael Novinson  •  August 3, 2023

New CEO Scott Harrell wants Infoblox to evolve from classic networking DNS management to bringing networking and security together in ways that optimize protection and efficiency. DNS serves as a building block for security since it is universal across large client devices and small mobile phones.

Endor Labs Raises $70M to Push From Code to Pipeline Defense

Michael Novinson  •  August 3, 2023

A finalist in RSA Conference's prestigious Innovation Sandbox contest completed its first major funding round to extend its capabilities from code security to pipeline security. Endor Labs got $70 million to move beyond protecting open-source software and get into locking down the CI/CD pipeline.

Tenable CEO Slams Microsoft for Failing to Quickly Patch Bug

Michael Novinson  •  August 2, 2023

Tenable CEO Amit Yoran once again accused Microsoft of irresponsible security practices, this time for letting a critical Azure vulnerability stay unpatched for four months. Tenable told Microsoft about a flaw in an Azure service that would allow an unauthenticated attacker to access sensitive data.

CEO Kabir Barday on OneTrust's Path to Being Publicly Traded

Michael Novinson  •  August 1, 2023

Atlanta-based trust intelligence firm OneTrust has balanced growth and profitability and now plans to use its $150 million funding round to boost its financial controls and processes and recruit a majority independent board to prepare for an eventual initial public offering, said CEO Kabir Barday.

BigID CEO on How to Govern Unstructured Data Informing LLMs

Michael Novinson  •  August 1, 2023

Organizations struggle with governing the data that goes into and informs large language models since it's in documents rather than spreadsheets or SQL databases, said BigID CEO Dimitri Sirota. Companies need a more effective governance framework for managing unstructured data, Sirota said.

Immuta CEO on Defending Access, Ownership in Data Warehouses

Michael Novinson  •  July 31, 2023

The shifting of information to data warehouses such as Snowflake and Databricks has created oversight challenges around access and ownership, said Immuta CEO Matthew Carroll. Customers should be able to scan and analyze where their cloud data lives and identify and fix flaws or abnormalities.

Salt CEO on the Security Risks Around Agile API Development

Michael Novinson  •  July 31, 2023

The rapid pace of API development has created major risk for companies given the amount of data that's being exposed, said Salt Security CEO Roey Eliyahu. The security industry hasn't adapted quickly to address these problems since it's still used to relatively static APIs that were easy to guard.

Menlo CEO Amir Ben-Efraim on Beating Highly Evasive Threats

Michael Novinson  •  July 28, 2023

The latest generation of ransomware and phishing attacks is being designed to evade existing network security controls such as gateways and firewalls, said Menlo Security CEO Amir Ben-Efraim. Threat actors have taken the time to codify, register and customize URLs to impersonate a bank's help desk.