Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) News: 28 April 2021

Each business day, MSSP Alert broadcasts a quick lineup of news, analysis and chatter from across the managed security services provider ecosystem.

A. Today’s MSSP and Cybersecurity News Alerts

1. M&A - Active Directory Security: Tenable completed the acquisition of Alsid SAS, a Microsoft Active Directory security specialist, on April 26, 2021.

2. Funding - Cyber Due Diligence: VISO Trust has raised $3 million in Seed funding to automate third party cyber due diligence with an AI-driven social due diligence network, the company says. Work-Bench led the round with additional participation from Sierra Ventures and Lytical Ventures. Kelley Mak, Principal at Work-Bench, will join VISO Trust's Board of Directors.

3. Funding - Secure Remote Access: Akeyless has secured a $14 million in Series A funding led by Team8 and with participation from Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP).

4. Funding Rumor: Cybersecurity startup Illumio is in talks to raise about $250 million in a funding round that values the company at about $2.9 billion. Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is poised to lead the latest funding round, Bloomberg reports.

5. BlackBerry Executive Promotions, Organization: BlackBerry has promoted Tom Eacobacci  to president and COO, and named Mattias Eriksson as president of the BlackBerry IoT Business Unit. The moves come as BlackBerry organizes its operations around two business units: Cyber Security and IoT.  In a related move, BlackBerry is appointing business unit general managers to provide direction to strategy, engineering, direct and channel sales, customer support and field marketing, the company says.

6. FireEye Quarterly Financial Results: FireEye's revenue was $246 million in Q1 of 2021, up 10 percent from $225 million in Q1 of 2020. FireEye's Mandiant business has spent recent months assisting government officials and vendors that were impacted by the SolarWinds Orion and Microsoft Exchange Server cyberattacks.

7. Cloud Cybersecurity: Palo Alto Networks has enhanced Prisma Cloud to protect all workloads, increase automation and detection, simplify compliance checks, and deepen visibility into malware threats for containers and hosts, the company says. Additionally, Palo Alto Networks unveiling a cloud native-attack dashboard that extends the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

8. SOAR Growth - EMEA: Swimlane's average number of users per deal across EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) grew 88 percent in Q4 2020 vs. Q4 2019, and the average ARR (annual recurring revenue) deal size grew by 55% year over year, the company says. Swimlane did not disclose actual revenue or profit dollar figures for EMEA. The company develops software that addresses security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR).

9. Ransomware and Data Protection: Cigent Technology, an In-Q-Tel-backed start-up, has unveiled Cigent Data Defense, an approach that "protects companies and individuals from ransomware, data theft and malicious insider attacks," the company says.

10. Application Security: WhiteHat Security, an independent subsidiary of NTT, has launched Attack Surface Management powered by Bit Discovery. The suite of features gives "enterprises a more streamlined way to discover, manage and secure their comprehensive attack surface," WhiteHat asserts.

B. Cybersecurity Partnerships, Strategic Alliances and Integrations

1. Customer Win - Managed Detection & Response (MDR): eSentire and Data Defenders have partnered to deliver MDR services to protect the city of Aurora, Illinois, from cyberattacks, the companies say.

2. Partner Program: Check Point Software Technologies has announced new initiatives in its global Check Point Partner Growth Program. The perks include

3. Integration - eXtended Detection and Response (XDR): The Attivo Endpoint Detection Net (EDN) Suite now integrates with SentinelOne’s Singularity XDR platform. The integrated solution detects credential and privilege escalation attacks, then sends the alert data to the SentinelOne XDR platform, which automatically quarantines the infected endpoint, Attivo says. Combining the two solutions "accelerates incident response and reduces the mean-time-to-respond or remediate," the company adds.

C. MSSP and Cybersecurity Virtual Events and Conference Calendar