Vendors Step Up As Hackers Get Stealthier

By Kyle Alspach

While cybersecurity has always been complex, the need to choose from a vast array of security vendors only adds to the challenge. To help solution providers navigate the industry, the CRN Security 100 highlights channel-friendly cybersecurity vendors across a number of market segments, including Endpoint and Managed Security, Identity Management and Data Protection, Network Security, Security Operations, Risk and Threat Intelligence, and Web, Email and Application Security.

Our list includes companies old and new, ranging from the largest and best-known players to some of the small-but-promising startups. Key themes include a growing focus on helping to secure organizations in a perimeter-less world in which workforces continue to be distributed, the attack surface is expanding and hackers are finding new ways to exploit the situation. Offerings focused on enabling a zero trust security posture, leveraging cloudnative technologies and providing more comprehensive detection capabilities are among those being featured prominently on our Security 100 list for 2023.

Without a doubt, security tools focused on prevention are not enough today, said Rocco Galletto, a partner and national cybersecurity leader at solution provider BDO Canada in Toronto.

While prevention is still important, businesses also need to think about how to achieve “cyber resilience”—recognizing that breaches are inevitable and that the key now is “to ensure that we respond, remediate and recover as quickly as possible to limit the damage,” Galletto said. Ultimately, “the days of monitoring that one firewall or that one choke point for the organization—those days are gone.”

When it comes to zero trust, the effort to offer products that enable a zero trust posture—which can involve deploying steeper requirements for user access to data and giving greater control to organizations—is now essentially an industrywide initiative.

Within Endpoint and Managed Security, among the vendors CRN is highlighting is Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike, which recently unveiled its Falcon Insight XDR offering. The platform enables the company’s endpoint detection and response customers to “easily activate XDR capabilities” to bring together telemetry from both CrowdStrike and third-party security tools, empowering security analysts to create “a detailed storyline on how an attack develops and progresses.”

Within Identity Management and Data Protection, one key vendor on the list this year is Austin-based SailPoint, which recently updated its Identity Security Cloud platform. The enhancements use AI to accelerate the measurement of risk around user access and bring greater automation to critical processes.

In Network Security, among the vendors on the list is Santa Clara, Calif.-based Palo Alto Networks, which recently released its PANOS 11.0 Nova software update. Among the more than 50 updates in the product is a new service, Advanced WildFire, which adds enhanced mitigations for attacks involving evasive malware.

Within Security Operations, Risk and Threat Intelligence, CRN is highlighting Mountain View, Calif.-based Google Cloud, which has been making a big bet on cybersecurity with the major acquisitions last year of Mandiant and Siemplify. Their technologies have been utilized in the recent launch of Chronicle Security Operations, a cloud-native alternative to traditional security information and event management tools that are often run by security teams in on-premises environments.

In Web, Email and Application Security, among those on this list is Boston-based Snyk, which offers developer-focused security tools that aim to make it easier to fix code security issues early in the software development process.

Following is the full list of vendors with details on key product offerings.

Endpoint And Managed Security Vendors

Amid an intensifying cyberthreat environment, the ability to detect malicious activity across endpoints and other IT environments is now table stakes for most businesses. From vendors providing endpoint detection and response tools to companies o ering managed detection and response services, here’s a look at key endpoint and managed security companies.

Bitdefender

Florin Talpeș Founder, CEO

Recent product updates from Bitdefender include the introduction of GravityZone Integrity Monitoring, aimed at monitoring and correcting unwanted changes to data. Sources of data the o ering helps to maintain include files, installed apps, registries and directories, as well as unwanted escalation of user privileges.

Eset

Richard Marko

CEO

ESET has made a number of updates recently to its products, including the launch of extended detection and response offerings for MSPs. The offerings aim to provide MSPs with a simplified and centralized platform that’s optimized for their unique needs.

OpenText

Cybersecurity

Mark Barrenechea

Vice Chair, CEO, CTO Information management technology company

OpenText o ers numerous cybersecurity products within its sizable portfolio. As part of its ”security cloud,” OpenText provides extended detection and response, data management, threat intelligence, digital investigations and information assurance.

BlackBerry John

Chen

Executive Chairman, CEO

BlackBerry recently unveiled its zero trust network access tool called CylanceGatewayto provide users with a contextual correlation of network and device telemetry with continuous authentication to limit access to trusted, authenticated and known users and devices.

Expel

Dave Merkel Co-Founder, CEO

Expel offers a 24/7 managed detection and response service across cloud, SaaS, networks and endpoints. It includes detection, rapid investigation and response, remediation and proactive threat hunting. Recent enhancements include accelerated phishing remediation to minimize the chances of a compromise.

Opswat

Benny Czarny Founder, Chairman, CEO

With a focus on providing security offerings for critical infrastructure providers, Opswat’s recent moves have included the acquisition of Bayshore Networks to extend critical infrastructure protection capabilities to operational technology and industrial control system environments.

CrowdStrike

George Kurtz

Co-Founder, President, CEO

While continuing to enhance its cloud-native Falcon endpoint detection and response platform, CrowdStrike has been doubling down on numerous other categories including identity protection and cloud security. Other recent product moves have included the introduction of Falcon LogScale for improved observability.

Huntress

Kyle Hanslovan Co-Founder, CEO

Huntress provides a managed security platform aimed at SMBs and has added features including external port monitoring, a managed antivirus offering and host isolation functionality. The company also recently said it was adding new managed endpoint detection and response capabilities.

Cynet

Eyal

Gruner

Co-Founder, CEO

Cynet offers an end-toend, natively automated extended detection and response platform backed by a 24/7 managed detection and response service. The Cynet 360 AutoXDR platform brings together detection, prevention, correlation, investigation and response across endpoints, users, networks and SaaS applications.

Kaspersky

Eugene Kaspersky Co-Founder, CEO

Kaspersky in June said that it was opening three new “transparency centers” around the globe where qualified personnel can review the company’s coding, software updates, threat detection rules and other engineering and data processing practices.

Deep Instinct Lane Bess

Co-Founder, CEO

Deep Instinct says its technology can predict attacks prior to their occurrence, including for previously unseen attacks, thanks to its deep-learning algorithm that seeks to replicate the workings of a human brain. Recent moves included the debut of Deep Instinct Prevention for Applications, an agentless solution for preventing malware attacks.

Malwarebytes

Marcin Kleczynski Co-Founder, CEO

Malwarebytes provides antivirus, endpoint and other security products and services and said in September that it is looking to massively expand its MSP partnership program. The moves are meant to increase the number of the company’s global MSP partners to 10,000 within the next few years, up from 2,700 in September.

SentinelOne

Tomer Weingarten

Co-Founder, CEO

A key player in endpoint detection and response with its AI-powered Singularity platform, SentinelOne’s recent moves have included the acquisition of Attivo Networks to target identity threat detection and response. It has also leveraged its Scalyr acquisition to launch capabilities for correlation of security data.

Sophos

Kris Hagerman CEO

Sophos debuted what it calls the first “agnostic” managed detection and response service that integrates telemetry from CrowdStrike, Microsoft, SentinelOne and others.

It also launched Sophos Marketplace, which it described as an “open ecosystem” of numerous technology integrations.

Tanium

Dan Streetman CEO

Tanium has launched a new category that it has dubbed ”converged endpoint management,” or ”XEM.” The offering integrates security and risk capabilities along with those of IT and operations, providing a centralized set of controls.