RedSeal CEO Ray Rothrock Says Academic Incubators Help Hone Great Ideas and Leaders at SXSW Panel

/by

As VC, Rothrock Backed Mark43 at Harvard’s iLab

Sunnyvale, Calif.– Today RedSeal (www.redseal.net) CEO Ray Rothrock joined Michael K. Young, President of Texas A&M University, and Jodi Goldstein, Managing Director of the Harvard Innovation Lab at Harvard University, for a panel discussion on academic incubators at South by Southwest (SXSW).

Rothrock, a former managing partner at Venrock, the investment arm of the Rockefeller family, shared his experience working with the academic incubator Harvard Innovation Lab. Rothrock held office hours at Harvard’s iLab, and met with students from Harvard College, Harvard Business School, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He listened to ideas, made some investments, assisted students with business plans and pitches, and even connected students with other investors who might have an interest in their business ideas.

“I invested in three ideas during my time at iLab. One of my investments was Mark43. The team consisted of three graduating seniors from Harvard’s Electrical Engineering program who had a law enforcement idea; traditionally a difficult area for VC money. They graduated, honed the software, and today it is a fast growing company based in NYC,” said Ray Rothrock, chairman and CEO of RedSeal. “They probably could have been successful without me, but the networking and support from the iLab was tremendous.”

Rothrock said “successful academic incubators are more than just bricks and mortar, but places where ideas come at a fast rate, and  get honed and vetted through a large number of smart, interested, involved people.”  According to Rothrock “just a few great deals start in incubators, but the people who start great companies often pass through an incubator along the way.”

The significance of building a cyber incubator to explore solutions and capabilities was also discussed by Rothrock during the panel discussion.

“Cyber requires not only deep skills and knowledge about networks, but also social engineering and psychology. Those skills are usually not found in one person, so it’s essential for teams to form in order for these successful ideas to mature. A cyber incubator would provide a space for multidisciplinary teams to refine these ideas,” said Rothrock.

The panel discussion explored how academic incubators are helping universities and colleges to become more competitive and attractive, and therefore better able to retain talented students and faculty. The South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference & Festivals celebrates the convergence of the interactive, film, and music industries.

RedSeal Joins Splunk Adaptive Response Initiative at RSA 2017

/by

RedSeal and Splunk Combine Forces to Deliver Automated and Continuous Response, Optimize Analytics-Driven Security and Improve Operational Efficiency

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & SAN FRANCISCO – RedSeal, the leader in network modeling and cyber risk scoring, and Splunk Inc., provider of the leading software platform for real-time Operational Intelligence, today announced that RedSeal has joined the Splunk® Adaptive Response Initiative. Powered by a growing list of leading cybersecurity technology vendors, Adaptive Response is a best-of-breed security initiative that leverages end-to-end context and continuous response to improve security operations with an adaptive security architecture. The announcement was made at the 2017 RSA Security Conference.

Following its unveiling at the 2016 RSA Security Conference, the Adaptive Response Initiative now includes over 20 participating vendors as members. With this extensive network, organizations can use Splunk Adaptive Response to further interact with data, extract and share new insights, gain more context and invoke actions across key security and IT domains. Ultimately, this allows customers to detect threats faster, make analytics-driven decisions and improve operational efficiencies within their Security Operations Center (SOC).

“Our increasingly digital world underscores the need for enterprise networks to be resilient to cyber events and network interruptions. Improved security posture and accelerated incident recovery are central to achieving this goal,” said Ray Rothrock, CEO of RedSeal. “By combining Splunk’s centrally positioned analytics-driven security platform with RedSeal’s network modeling and risk scoring platform, we are thrilled to help security professionals around the world gather even more context to detect threats quicker and deliver a more automated and continuous response against advanced attackers.”

While many organizations employ a layered, multi-vendor approach to security, most individual solutions are not designed to work together outside of the box. Splunk Enterprise Security (Splunk ES), working in conjunction with technologies like RedSeal’s network modeling and risk scoring platform, extends analytics-driven decision-making and improves detection, investigation and remediation times by centrally automating retrieval, sharing and response.

“We created the Adaptive Response Initiative so organizations could efficiently combat advanced attacks while utilizing their existing security architectures. Members like RedSeal are key to the success of Adaptive Response,” said Haiyan Song, senior vice president of security markets, Splunk. “Together we will solve this very challenging problem facing every enterprise.”

 

About RedSeal

RedSeal puts power in decision makers’ hands with the essential network modeling and risk scoring platform for building digitally resilient organizations. RedSeal’s Digital Resilience Score, modeled after a creditworthiness score, measures how prepared an organization is to respond to an incident and quickly rebound. The company’s platform adds value to existing network devices by working with them and building a network model. With this, customers can improve their security posture, accelerate incident response, and improve the productivity of their network and security teams. RedSeal’s customers are Global 2000 corporations and government agencies that depend on the most sophisticated security. Founded in 2004, RedSeal is headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif. and serves customers globally through a direct sales and channel partner network.

RedSeal Extends Digital Resilience Platform Across Network Environments, Improves Security and Network Teams’ Productivity with New Integrations

/by

Expedites Analysis with Seamless Integration into Network Security Products from Splunk, Rapid7 and ForeScout

 SUNNYVALE, Calif. –  Today RedSeal (www.redseal.net) announced enhancements and new integrations for its market leading network modeling and risk scoring platform. The enhancements will give RedSeal users a single, comprehensive understanding of network security across their datacenter, cloud and software-defined networks.

The enhancements also help security teams be more productive despite ever-increasing demands by delivering actionable intelligence from RedSeal’s network modeling platform directly into Splunk’s Enterprise Security SIEM, Rapid7’s Nexpose vulnerability management software, and ForeScout’s CounterACT.

“Enterprises today have complex network infrastructures with many point product security solutions,” said Ray Rothrock, chairman and CEO of RedSeal. “To improve their resilience in the face of inevitable attacks, they need a holistic view of their network that’s deeply integrated with their current security solutions.”

Platform Enhancements

The digital infrastructures for nearly all Global 2000 companies include on-premise, cloud and virtualized networks. The resulting networks are large, complex, and constantly changing, making a complete and detailed understanding of the current state of a network very difficult. To address this, RedSeal can now model complete networks – including software-defined networks (SDNs) in VMWare NSX and enhanced modeling of Amazon Web Services Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs).

RedSeal provides critical visibility into access controls for these SDN environments, and alerts users to violations of customized policies they’ve established for their organizations.

Expanded Integrations with Splunk, Rapid7 and ForeScout

To streamline security teams’ efforts, and further improve network security, RedSeal now integrates into the user interfaces of Splunk’s Enterprise Security SIEM, Rapid7’s Nexpose vulnerability management software, and ForeScout’s CounterACT.

This improves the efficacy of each of these products, giving their users unprecedented network context within the tools, and in the format, they’re already using. Specifically:

  • Integration with Splunk’s Enterprise Security SIEM accelerates incident response efforts. RedSeal provides the SIEM with critical network context and identifies access paths to and from Indicators of Compromise (IOC) leading to other critical assets.
  • Integration with Rapid7’s Nexpose vulnerability management software identifies gaps in vulnerability scan coverage.
  • Integration with ForeScout’s CounterACT prioritizes hosts in terms of actual risk so appropriate action can be taken.

“Customers tell us that RedSeal’s unique information adds value to a number of their security functions,” said Rothrock. “Now they can get this information without having to open and learn another product. These apps give our customers even more productivity and efficiency, accelerating their ability to identify and respond to problems.”

To learn more, visit RedSeal Integration Apps.

About RedSeal

RedSeal’s network modeling and risk scoring platform is the foundation for enabling enterprise networks to be resilient to cyber events and network interruptions in an increasingly digital world. RedSeal helps customers understand their network from the inside, out – and provides actionable intelligence, situational awareness and a Digital Resilience Score to help enterprises measure and ultimately build greater resilience into their infrastructure. Government agencies and Global 2000 companies around the world rely on RedSeal to help them improve their overall security posture, accelerate incident response and increase the productivity of their security and network teams. Founded in 2004, RedSeal is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and serves customers globally through a direct and channel partner network.

RedSeal Reaches Profitability in 2016 with Strong Year-Over-Year Growth

/by

Network Modeling and Risk Scoring Company More Than Doubles Q4 Revenue
as Demand for Digital Resiliency Increases

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — RedSeal (redseal.net), the leader in network modeling and cyber risk scoring, today announced its 2016 bookings were up 45 percent compared to the previous year, and the company was cash flow positive nearly $5 million in the fourth quarter alone.

Demand for RedSeal’s network modeling and risk scoring platform is steadily growing as security teams seek to combat cyber attacks by gaining a comprehensive understanding of network security across their datacenter, cloud, and software-defined networks.

“It’s not a question of if an organization will suffer a security breach, but when,” said Ray Rothrock, CEO of RedSeal. “That’s why digital resiliency has become a critical part of any effective cyber defense strategy. To minimize harm and loss, organizations must be able to operate through impairment and rebound quickly. To do that, they need a network modeling and risk scoring platform that puts decision-making power right in their hands.”

Highlights of RedSeal’s fourth quarter performance include a 113% overall increase in bookings, a 25% jump in commercial bookings, and a 105% increase in revenue over the same period in 2015. New business in the fourth quarter was up 139% and expansions increased by 123% compared to Q4 of 2015. This includes the close of a $31 million multi-year contract—the largest subscription deal in its history. Additionally, gross margins climbed to 86% in fiscal year 2016, up from 77% the previous year.

RedSeal’s proven network modeling and risk scoring platform has been implemented by over 40 government agencies and hundreds of commercial enterprises. Overall, RedSeal acquired 52 new customers in 2016 from across government agencies and commercial sectors, including a range of technology, professional services, retail, and financial services companies.

One of the newest customers is the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which signed a multi-year license for RedSeal’s network modeling and risk scoring platform. DISA is providing RedSeal’s platform to all U.S. Army networks, USAF boundaries networks, and several other DISA networks. The contract is a strong reflection of RedSeal’s ability to streamline the efforts of security teams and further improve network security via the company’s market leading network modeling and risk scoring platform.

On the international front, RedSeal grew its global presence in 2016, opening new offices in Japan and Canada, and accelerating its traction around the world. Overall, the company has increased headcount by 43% percent since the beginning of 2016.

The momentum continued as RedSeal rounded out its management team in 2016 with the addition of Julie Parrish as Chief Marketing Officer and Nash Kapoor as Regional Vice President for EMEA. Parrish is leading the company’s global effort to position RedSeal as the thought leader in digital resilience and further drive demand for the company’s network modeling and risk scoring platform. Kapoor brings over 15 year of experience as an IT sales professional and manager to RedSeal with a proven track record of overachievement in new business sales. His tenure includes roles at IKON, Dell, Symantec, and most recently Varonis.

 

###

About RedSeal

RedSeal’s network modeling and risk scoring platform is the foundation for enabling enterprise networks to be resilient to cyber events and network interruptions in an increasingly digital world. RedSeal helps customers understand their network from the inside, out – and provides actionable intelligence, situational awareness and a Digital Resilience Score to help enterprises measure and ultimately build greater resilience into their infrastructure. Government agencies and Global 2000 companies around the world rely on RedSeal to help them improve their overall security posture, accelerate incident response and increase the productivity of their security and network teams. Founded in 2004, RedSeal is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and serves customers globally through a direct and channel partner network.

U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) JRSS Program Chooses RedSeal for Continuous Monitoring of Cyber Network Operations

/by

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – RedSeal (www.redseal.net), a leader in the network modeling and scoring market, announced that the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has awarded a multi-year contract for its network modeling and risk scoring platform valued at $33.8M.

In an effort to create a highly-resilient global DoD network, DISA will use RedSeal to model and continuously monitor the infrastructure of the Joint Regional Security Stacks (JRSS), provide visibility into network segmentation and measure overall resiliency to deliver risk based situational awareness.

JRSS is a Department of Defense (DoD) program that creates a single, standardized, security architecture, which will eventually support more than 95 percent of the DoD’s network. JRSS performs firewall functions, intrusion detection and prevention, enterprise management, virtual routing and forwarding (VRF), and a host of network security capabilities. By deploying JRSS, DISA centralized the security of its networks into regional architectures, moving away from the more vulnerable, locally distributed architectures that are spread across each military base, post, camp, or station.

“The JRSS stacks are located at strategic military installations around the world, creating a massive, varied and dispersed network that supports critical military services. Its resilience is a matter of international security,” said Kimberly Baker, VP and GM RedSeal Public Sector. “From Fort Meade, the Joint Management Program monitors, manages and controls DoD digital operations all over the world. They need effective metrics to understand the real-time health of the global network, and RedSeal proved to be the best choice for ensuring its resilience under relentless probing and attack.”

To further improve the resilience of their networks – and as a result of this agreement – DISA will be providing RedSeal’s powerful modeling and risk scoring platform to all U.S. Army networks, USAF boundary networks, and several other COCOM networks.

“The new cyber battleground is inside the network, not at the perimeter,” said Ray Rothrock, chairman and CEO of RedSeal. “DISA chose RedSeal because our platform will help them more clearly manage and measure their cyber strategies and investments. This selection by DISA underscores the value RedSeal delivers to military and federal organizations, as well as enterprises at-large. As a company, we’re proud to help DISA’s teams be more resilient by being better prepared to sustain critical operations and protect high-value assets.”

About RedSeal

RedSeal’s network modeling and risk scoring platform is the foundation for enabling enterprise networks to be resilient to cyber events and network interruptions in an increasingly digital world. RedSeal helps customers understand their network from the inside, out – and provides rich context, situational awareness and a Digital Resilience Score to help enterprises measure and ultimately build greater resilience into their infrastructure. Government agencies and Global 2000 companies around the world rely on RedSeal to help them improve their overall security posture, accelerate incident response and increase the productivity of their security and network teams. Founded in 2004, RedSeal is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and serves customers globally through a direct and channel partner network.

RedSeal CEO Ray Rothrock to Speak at Texas A&M Cybersecurity of Critical Infrastructure Summit 2017

/by

Rothrock Will Say It Is Time for a Pivot from Protection to Resilience in U.S. Cybersecurity Strategy

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – January 12, 2017 – RedSeal CEO Ray Rothrock will deliver a keynote speech today at Texas A&M University’s Cybersecurity of Critical Infrastructure Summit 2017 in College Station, Texas. The three-day event, sponsored by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, will focus on cybersecurity in the energy and manufacturing sectors. It will convene experts, thought-leaders, and decision makers from government, industry and academia with the goal of defining approaches that will significantly enhance the security of critical infrastructure in the presence of evolving cybersecurity threats.

Rothrock’s morning keynote speech will discuss the need for a pivot in the nation’s cybersecurity strategy from protection to resilience designed to minimize losses in the evitable cyberattacks against our nation’s critical infrastructure.

“Cyberattacks are now so advanced that hackers can almost certainly succeed in getting inside any network of their choosing. To protect the critical infrastructure of our country, we need to be prepared to shut these attacks down as fast as possible,” said Ray Rothrock, chairman and CEO of RedSeal.

Heightening threats to infrastructure security are indicative of a broader cybersecurity problem. Rothrock warns that the rate of information security loss is accelerating faster than the ability to contain the threat. Despite the $90 billion spent on information security in 2016, last year organizations reported $1 trillion in losses from cybersecurity attacks. Rothrock predicts the gap will widen. Investment in cybersecurity infrastructure is expected to grow to over $101 billion by 2020, while cyber losses are increasing at more than twice the rate of security expenditures.

Yet, CEOs are not proportionately concerned about these risks. RedSeal polled 200 CEOs about their confidence in their companies’ cybersecurity posture and discovered they are dangerously unrealistic about how vulnerable they are. In fact, more than 80 percent display “cyber naiveté,” allowing their global organizations to be exposed to massive cyberattacks. Rothrock advocates awareness of these threats and implementation of resilience-based counter measures.

“In order to keep operating and stay productive even while fending off a cyberattack or fixing a vulnerability, a new cyber operating strategy is needed. This new strategy is called digital resilience, which, coupled with world-class prevention, is the best defense,” said Rothrock.

President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity also supports a pivot to resilience, concluding that resilience must be a core component of any cybersecurity strategy. The December report recommends more workers, government-private sector cooperation, and a new resilience paradigm, because firewalls will not keep all the threat-actors out. Rothrock will tell Summit participants that a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy across all IT functions and businesses to minimize the impact of cyber-attacks and network interruptions is needed.

The Texas A&M Cybersecurity of Critical Infrastructure Summit 2017 is co-hosted by the Texas A&M College of Engineering and the Bush School of Government and Public Service. The event organizers are the Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study (TIAS) and the Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center (TAMC2), a joint partnership between Texas A&M and the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.