A CISO’s perspective: Solving a 20-year cyber security problem

My partner Jay Leek and I have decades of experience as CISOs.  We’ve both literally spoken with hundreds of security companies and it’s easy to become jaded.  It’s rare that we get truly excited about a new security technology. Preempt sparked that sense of excitement in both of us.  If we really prioritize based on risk we’ll find that many security priorities aren’t about chasing “advanced APT ninjas.” It is about focusing on the more mundane functions of vulnerability and access management.

For decades, we have seen the same attack pattern and set of vulnerabilities used over and over in high profile breaches. We know that credentials are stolen via phishing or other means.  We know that the absence of multi-factor authentication and reliance on passwords allows the attackers to assume the identity of valid users.  We know that esoteric “Pass the Hash,” Kerberos, “Golden Ticket” are used to gain unrestricted enterprise access. We know that Windows Active Directory is a core technology component and that configuring it to be secure may require trade-offs that are infeasible, especially in complicated enterprises that have to maintain backwards compatibility for applications.

Preempt’s approach to pinpointing and actively blocking threats based on identity, behavior and risk is one of the more exciting concepts we’ve seen in cybersecurity. Prior to investing we spoke to Preempt’s customers.  We learned that Preempt delivers significant out of the box value in disrupting the kill chain discussed above.

What excites us about Preempt is that finally there is a technology to disrupt this tried and true attack path.  Detection and response are fine but prevention is king. Preempt makes it possible to finally get ahead of the attackers.

Preempt’s technology has now been validated by major companies in the U.S. and worldwide across many industry sectors. We are looking forward to working with the Preempt team as they continue to innovate and address the challenges of security breaches and insider threats for enterprises worldwide.