Startup Circle: How is Cyware transforming cybersecurity operations with real-time threat intelligence?

Cyware helps enterprise cybersecurity teams build platform-agnostic virtual cyber fusion centers. In this interaction with CiOL, Akshat Jain, Co-founder, and CTO, Cyware, shares the journey of Cyware as one of the country’s cybersecurity leaders. He also throws light on how Cyware’s enterprise solutions promote secure collaboration, inculcate cyber resilience, enhance threat visibility and deliver needed control by providing organizations with automated context-rich analysis of threats for a proactive response without losing the element of human judgment.

Tell us about Cyware and your offerings.

We had a vision of transforming an organization’s security operations into an integrated, streamlined unit and bringing together organizations to build a collective defense. To achieve this vision, Cyware offers a Virtual Cyber Fusion solution that fosters collaboration between siloed security teams while combining threat intelligence with security orchestration automation and response (SOAR) through a single platform to provide comprehensive visibility, accelerated threat response, and ease of governance.

Cyware’s SOAR solutions enable enterprises and MSSPs to connect the dots and build automated threat response workflows that can orchestrate security actions across cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid infrastructure. Moreover, Cyware’s threat intelligence platform (TIP) solution empowers organizations and information sharing communities (ISACs/ISAOs) with threat intelligence automation and sharing capabilities to proactively curb threats and coordinate security actions with various stakeholders.

What are the drivers/market trends that are shaping the cybersecurity landscape in 2021?

Lately, the scourge of ransomware attacks, remote access exploits, and supply chain attacks have shaken the cybersecurity landscape. In wake of several recent attacks targeting critical infrastructure entities, organizations are realizing that security teams are at a major disadvantage against these rapidly evolving threats if they stick to siloed and reactionary strategies. Organizations are now collaborating with other organizations while ingesting and analyzing threat data to deduce contextual and actionable threat intelligence to identify relevant security threats.

We are witnessing major growth in threat intelligence automation and sharing activities across various industry sectors to collaboratively fend off critical threats. In addition to this, security teams are moving away from manual and disjointed security operations towards tightly orchestrated and automated SecOps by leveraging security automation and orchestration (SOAR) technologies. Organizations that have automated their people, processes, and technologies and are leveraging actionable threat intelligence can respond to security threats more quickly and effectively.

How is Cyware tapping these market trends for growth?

Cyware is the industry’s only provider of a Virtual Cyber Fusion solution that offers the capability for siloed security teams to collaborate while offering Threat Intelligence (TIP) and SOAR platforms as an integrated unit to strengthen an organization’s overall cybersecurity posture. Cyware’s SOAR capability makes a diverse set of security tools and technologies interoperable, thereby drastically reducing the time spent on manual, repetitive tasks and allowing security teams to rapidly eliminate threats from their networks and systems by delivering automated threat responses.

The threat intelligence automation capabilities of our TIP give organizations a leg-up by driving security processes with a precise understanding of adversary behavior to enable a proactive defense. Adding to this, Cyware’s solutions boost situational awareness and cyber resilience of security teams through automated threat intelligence sharing in trusted environments. Our solutions are currently enabling large Fortune 2000 enterprises, information sharing communities (ISACs/ISAOs), National CERTs, Government bodies, Industry Associations, and others to gain the needed threat visibility, foster collaboration, and inculcate cyber resilience to fend off advanced cyber attacks.

How has your revenue grown with the brand evolving during the pandemic?

The pandemic threw up new operational challenges for all organizations. However, the Cyware team has shown a great level of adaptability and resilience by continuing to innovate on our security solutions and offerings. An annual recurring revenue (ARR) of more than 120% in 2020 with a continued triple-digit year-on-year ARR growth for the last three years is a testament to the commitment and capabilities of our all-star team and solutions. Along with more than doubling our number of customers, we also raised our Series A ($10 Million) and Series B ($30 Million) funding within a short span of seven months during the pandemic from a group of reputed investors.

The new threat landscape faced by organizations today has resulted in the greater adoption of our virtual cyber fusion and collective defense solutions. Keeping pace with the rising demand for our solutions, we continue to scale our operations across all major geographies.

What has 2020 changed for you? How are things now?

Cyware achieved several key milestones for product development, customer adoption, and business growth in the year 2020. We more than doubled our enterprise and mid-market customer base, including some of the largest enterprises. Cyware’s threat intelligence sharing platforms are being increasingly leveraged by several large information sharing and analysis centers (ISACs) for automating threat data sharing between thousands of their member organizations. Along with more than doubling our customer count, Cyware released over 40 major product updates across its Virtual Cyber Fusion product suite.

On top of this, we became the industry’s first provider of a threat intelligence platform (TIP) that's purpose-built for mid-market organizations with smaller-sized cybersecurity teams.  We added several industry veterans to our leadership team as well as our board of directors to further strengthen our human capital. Adding to the validation of our solutions, Gartner recognized Cyware in its 2020 Market Guide for Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) solutions. Last but not least, the Cyware team came together to help each other and embodied the true spirit of collaboration and cooperation even during the most challenging moments in 2020.

What are your growth priorities for 2021?

Cyware has pioneered the new virtual cyber fusion approach for building next-gen security operations. We have also dived into the mid-market segment to help organizations with smaller cybersecurity teams set up their threat intel operations through our purpose-built threat intel platform. We aim to increase our customer base across all verticals and keep iterating our products to be the leading cyber fusion and collective defense solutions provider in the years to come. The mission of bringing together cyber defenders together against the rising menace of cyber threats will remain our foremost priority.

Elaborate on Cyware’s funding process.

Investors bring a lot of value to the table beyond just providing financial support for a venture. At Cyware, we looked for investors whose vision aligns with ours and those who have rich experience in the cybersecurity domain. The funding process for Cyware involved multiple meetings with investors to understand how they can help us fill specific value gaps and forge partnerships to further strengthen our market position. In this process, we learned how to avoid any potential pitfalls and built a fruitful relationship with the right match of reputed investors that have propelled our growth story.