Peter Bookman
Founder & CEO at Guard Dog Solutions
Based on long-time expertise (and proof) in cybersecurity, guardDog.ai has led out in protection for Edge Territory – the parts of network access that continue to be unprotected because they are coming from the devices the network and router don’t manage and can’t see. The Smart Pen lying on the table. The Internet-enabled device your child’s friend brings into your home (or uses in the outside perimeter) while you naively go about your work assignments, banking and normal activities from your phone or laptop inside.
As our EVP Kelly Ryan noted in her most recent Follow the Money blog, it does not take a scientist or even an economist to recognize the problems in the fact that hackers continue to hack because it’s profitable to do so, and large cybersecurity providers are often paid far more (even orders of magnitude more) to remediate the problems they missed than giant sums they were paid to provide the protection that failed. At smaller levels, integrators feel helpless to provide more or different protection than their network providers inherently carry, and simply shrug in defeat and announce “the network’s protection wasn’t designed for this” when their clients are hit.
A broader horizon: Attack Surface Management
Preventative protection – “pre-mediation” – and countermeasures against suspicious behaviors and attempted exploits are a specialty for guardDog.ai that has put us ahead of the crowd. For our MSSP and integrator partners, it also re-sets the balance of economic power by making it profitable to prevent the exploit than to profit from the exploit as either a hacker or as a remediating provider — (yes, let’s take a moment to wrap our heads around this).
We need to be expanding our horizons further, by examining not just device and network management, but protection that is proactive, preventative, and able to examine the entire Attack Surface – the entire spectrum of potential entry points to a network that spans the devices, the wireless access perimeter, and even the router itself.
But it’s now time to lead out further still, into the concept of Attack Surface Management (ASM), and for integrators, MSSPs and service providers who can enact it, the arena of Attack Surface Management as a Service (ASMaaS). ASM is only now beginning to arise on the cybersecurity horizon, but is a giant need as well as a giant opportunity – fewer than 10 percent of enterprise companies (Fortune 500 or greater) are thinking about and addressing the attack surface beyond the defined security and devise management their networks provide.
Likewise, only 27 percent of integrators are offering any level of cybersecurity protection for their customers beyond the embedded technology in the hardware they install. But with our support, integrators can proactively prevent intrusions across the network and at the router itself by establishing an Attack Surface Management as a Service (ASMaaS) cybersecurity service-based solution.
This means several things: 1) greater protection. 2) fewer attacks and vastly reduced financial incentives for hacking, and, better still, 3) residual revenue for IT providers and integrators that is cost effective for customers, doesn’t require additional support or effort, and restores the economic balance by compensating integrators for successfully protecting their customers against exploits, as opposed to being paid to remediate the problems their cybersecurity failures have caused.
A better and more productive ecosystem for all
It is my hope in sharing these ideas we can all come to a better understanding not only of cybersecurity and what we need to provide that is still missing, but also to see the ways that addressing the spectrum of issues through full attack surface management feeds partnerships and IT ecosystems in a positive way. We can make the world better and more cyber protected while making revenue in a stronger and better ecosystem for all. And, for those who can join us, I’ll be joining CePRO and guardDog.ai advisory partner Glenn Merrill Johnson to discuss this subject in more detail in the CePRO May 25 Webinar, “Follow the Cybersecurity Money” at 2:00 EST. You can sign up to participate here.
About guardDog.ai
guardDog.ai provides a software service that simplifies cybersecurity management with AI-powered autonomous detection and response technology. The solution is designed to make advanced cybersecurity accessible for small, mid-market, and distributed organizations without complexity. It can be easily deployed on hardware, in virtualized environments, embedded systems, and more, offering automatic protection at the network level. Hidden threats to networks and devices are made visible and instantly terminated with intelligent countermeasures, and detected vulnerabilities are exposed. Management of the service, incident and severity level reporting, and access to additional advanced features are accessed through a cloud-based security operations dashboard. For more information, please email dealers@guardDog.ai or visit the guardDog.ai dealer page here.
Contacts
Sales Contact:
sales@staging.guarddog.ai
833-248-2733