Of late, Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) framework is being leveraged by the organisations in order to improve cybersecurity. Cybersecurity startup Cyware’s SOAR solutions enable enterprises to build automated, cross-functional workflows that can orchestrate security and response actions across cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid infrastructure. In India, the company is providing scalable SOAR and threat intelligence solutions to help organizations adopt a more agile and threat visibility-driven security approach for proactively curbing cyber threats.
“Our team size in India has also grown more than 2x over the last year during the pandemic as we provide more global technology exposure to our engineering teams for upskilling and being on the cutting edge of advancements in cybersecurity,” says Akshat Jain, CTO and Co-founder, Cyware, in an email interaction with CIO AXIS.
Give us a brief about your company? What kind of solutions/products are you into?
Cyware has pioneered the Virtual Cyber Fusion platform as a solution to turn cybersecurity into a cohesive, streamlined operational unit for organizations. It connects various security functions under a single platform to provide enhanced threat visibility, threat response capabilities, and ease of governance. Cyware’s SOAR solutions enable organizations to build automated, cross-functional workflows that can orchestrate security and response actions across cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid infrastructure. By making a diverse set of tools and technologies interoperable, Cyware enables security teams to drastically reduce the time spent on manual, repetitive tasks and rapidly eliminate threats from their networks and systems. Cyware’s threat intelligence automation solutions help drive security processes with critical insights on adversary behavior to facilitate proactive defense. Additionally, Cyware also provides solutions that help organizations improve their situational awareness and mount a collective defense through automated strategic and tactical threat information sharing. This helps bring together various stakeholders in the fight against cyber adversaries.
What is the idea behind the start-up? Throw some light on your company’s journey in India
With my co-founder Anuj Goel, we started Cyware with a vision to build the next generation of security operations by integrating all security operations functions through virtual cyber fusion. With experience in leading large security and technology teams, Anuj and I realized the limitations of the reactive, manually-driven, and intelligence-deprived security strategies followed by organizations in the past which applied to organizations globally including India. Without organizations embracing security collaboration, these challenges are further compounded. We set out to help organizations overcome these challenges and transform the security landscape by creating integrated and streamlined cyber fusion solutions that drive collaboration between siloed security teams while automating workflows through SOAR (security orchestration, automation and response) and provide threat visibility through end-to-end threat intelligence automation.
In India, we are providing scalable SOAR and threat intelligence solutions to help organizations adopt a more agile and threat visibility-driven security approach for proactively curbing cyber threats. We also have our largest development and engineering center in India in Bangalore and a research and analysis wing in Mumbai. Our team size in India has also grown more than 2x over the last year during the pandemic as we provide more global technology exposure to our engineering teams for upskilling and being on the cutting edge of advancements in cybersecurity.
Share some insights on how Cyware is leading the security landscape?
Cyware is leading the way in building the next generation of security infrastructure with its virtual cyber fusion platform. In addition to that, we have built the industry’s first dedicated threat intel solution for mid-market organizations with smaller or no dedicated security teams.
The widespread adoption of our solutions globally has continued our aggressive growth momentum. In 2020, we witnessed over 120% ARR growth rate which marked a hattrick of year-on-year triple digit growth rates for us. We aim to continue innovating on our products and growing our reach to achieve our mission of strengthening cyber defenders through our cyber fusion and collective defense solutions.
What is your flagship product/solution? Explain the solution in detail.
Cyware’s Virtual Cyber Fusion platform helps organizations level up their security operations through the integration of disparate security functions and by leveraging the best of both human and machine-driven capabilities. This allows security teams to create a smart, automated end-to-end threat management and response workflow that can curb various kinds of threats at each stage of the attack lifecycle. The Virtual Cyber Fusion makes the lives of security decision-makers much easier by providing comprehensive visibility and control over their cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid infrastructure. Additionally, the infusion of strategic and tactical threat intelligence enables security teams to proactively mount defenses against emerging threats and rapidly identify and mitigate the existing gaps in their security posture.
Which cybersecurity solution of Cyware has great traction/adoption in the Indian market? Which industries/verticals adopt it the most?
Cyware’s virtual cyber fusion solutions that offer next-gen SOAR, threat intelligence analysis, and situational awareness capabilities have garnered immense praise from its customers and industry analysts. The capabilities provided by Cyware’s fusion platform featured in Gartner 2020 SOAR market guide which is widely considered a gold standard for security platforms globally and particularly in India. In India, Cyware’s solutions are being leveraged by enterprises across industry verticals including large banks and financial services companies, government institutions, managed security service providers (MSSPs) and regulatory bodies.
Please share details on how Cyware SOAR solutions are enabling security teams to identify the loopholes, define the solutions, and automate threat response.
Cyware’s SOAR solutions enable enterprises and MSSPs to build automated cross-functional workflows that orchestrate security actions across cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid infrastructure. By making a diverse set of tools and technologies interoperable, Cyware enables security teams to drastically reduce the time spent on manual, repetitive tasks and rapidly eliminate threats from their networks and systems.
Unlike traditional SOAR platforms, Cyware’s SOAR solutions offer added advantages to security teams by way of cross-functional and cross-environment orchestration between security, IT/ITSM, and DevOps tools and across cloud and on-premise environments respectively.
What are some of the industry challenges that you anticipate on the horizon?
The biggest challenge is to grow our business while a global pandemic has impacted our employees, partners, and clients. Our employees have been incredibly resilient, and we’ve grown over 200% despite the challenges posed.
The second market challenge has actually turned into an opportunity for us, that is bringing both SOAR and threat intelligence that are fractured into two separate markets, together. SOAR solutions integrated with threat intelligence platforms align with Gartner’s definition of SOAR, and that is exactly what Cyware delivers to enterprise customers globally – next-generation SOAR and threat intelligence. Extending our enterprise use cases, as well as addressing new use cases is critical to our success as we become a valuable technology partner and continue to innovate for our customers and partners.
Competitive differentiation in a crowded market is the third challenge to highlight. But, we don’t see that as a challenge because Cyware has always been in the forefront by introducing Cyber Fusion technologies to the industry. We are the first company to build a stack that helps our clients in building a cyber fusion center. It’s important for us to educate our customers on what is Marketing hype, and what is tangible in terms of core SOAR and TIP functionality.
What is Cyware’s market focus and growth strategy for India? Share your roadmap for the upcoming years.
Cyware aims to build state-of-the-art solutions to meet customer needs across the globe, covering large and mid-size enterprises, National CERTs, and information sharing communities (ISACs / ISAOs). With the rapidly changing security needs of organizations in India experiencing a digital transformation, Cyware is well-positioned to deliver innovative platforms that drive the adoption of the Cyber Fusion vision via next-gen SOAR and threat intelligence solutions. Under this strategy, Cyware will continue to build its global brand awareness, sales pipeline and revenue, partner with leading resellers and technology partners, and leverage targeted messaging and value-based content to help solve their challenges. The success stories with existing customers also add to Cyware’s go-to-market strategy, including documented validation of Cyware’s unique approach in analyst reports, customer case studies, and use cases across partner and customer deployments. Furthermore, with leading and largest information sharing communities across the globe adopting Cyware’s solutions for threat intelligence sharing, Cyware is marching forward to create a first-of-its-kind global collective defense network.