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Proof that the cyber security industry is an overlooked dark horse, full of opportunities. Too bad it gets overshadowed by AI, cryptocurrency, VR/AR. I guess i

Proof that the cyber security industry is an overlooked dark horse, full of opportunities. Too bad it gets overshadowed by AI, cryptocurrency, VR/AR. I guess it's unsexy and not necessarily new. But there's a lot of money in it.

munchbunny 7y ago
From the inside of the cyber security industry, it certainly doesn't feel that dark horse-like. It feels quite crowded actually. There are two big things going for it though: 1. There's an adversarial relationship that drives up demand for products. 2. It's stupidly complex, so there's a lot of potential value add in anything that can simplify the problem. The main thing going against the cyber security industry is that while it's sexy to subject matter experts, it's not really sexy to boardrooms, Silicon Valley tech startups included, many who see it as a cost center and something that slows down product development and thus do the minimum necessary to look secure. Speaking from anecdotal evidence. In the context of big companies, Krebs on Security had a great article in the wake of the Equifax breach which pointed out that there are very few CISO's (or equivalent) who report to the CTO or CEO. For the most part they report to the CFO, to the head of IT, or to the head of legal.
- staticassertion 7y ago
  I just reviewed roughly 20 vendors. Doesn't feel crowded at all when they all basically do the same thing. There's a ton of room in this space for real innovation. Instead, as mentioned, we get substitutes for innovation, like "AI". If infosec weren't a dark horse, we wouldn't be miserably to protect against breaches. Clearly there is a need not being addressed.
- cik 7y ago
  Concur, also from inside the industry. The reality is that almost every C-Suite executive I talk to sees security as a cost center, and rolls it (and IT even) into the CFO, or the COO. We focus on helping an organization make security an enabler. Yet even those customers who get it - really only care when there's a breach, or if someone's bacon has seriously been saved. Suffice it to say, I find the industry troubling, to say the least.
  - staticassertion 7y ago
    Lots of things are cost centers. SRE is a cost center. OPS is a cost center. Companies still pay a fortune for services that optimize these areas. Hell, why do you think Splunk has 1 billion dollars to burn?
    - SamuelAdams 7y ago
      >Lots of things are cost centers. Agreed. If you boil it all down, the only things that are "profit centers" are either Marketing or Sales. Everything else is a cost. When a company I work for begins putting its employees into boxes like that, I look for a quick exit. It's only a matter of time before the C-level staff start reducing those "cost-centers" to a few overworked, underpaid staff.
bpicolo 7y ago
Signalfx isn't a cyber security company, it's an application metrics company (think graphite/prometheus as a service)
dvfb 7y ago
Signal is in the monitoring space rather then cyber security.. still a relevant point though.. monitoring is very overlooked
- codesushi42 7y ago
  Splunk is a cyber security company.
  - falsedan 7y ago
    I thought it was log aggregation and search.
    - tomlong 7y ago
      They have an 'Enterprise Security' product sitting on their platform which is pretty powerful and a fairly big player in this space.
    - occamsrazorwit 7y ago
      Splunk is a platform for log aggregation and search. There are use cases (apps) built on top of it which include infrastructure monitoring and cybersecurity.
plolio 7y ago
In my experience the hardest part is proving that your cyber security company adds value to your customers. It feels like companies finally understand the value proposition after many years of negligence.

munchbunny 7y ago

From the inside of the cyber security industry, it certainly doesn't feel that dark horse-like. It feels quite crowded actually. There are two big things going for it though: 1. There's an adversarial relationship that drives up demand for products. 2. It's stupidly complex, so there's a lot of potential value add in anything that can simplify the problem. The main thing going against the cyber security industry is that while it's sexy to subject matter experts, it's not really sexy to boardrooms, Silicon Valley tech startups included, many who see it as a cost center and something that slows down product development and thus do the minimum necessary to look secure. Speaking from anecdotal evidence. In the context of big companies, Krebs on Security had a great article in the wake of the Equifax breach which pointed out that there are very few CISO's (or equivalent) who report to the CTO or CEO. For the most part they report to the CFO, to the head of IT, or to the head of legal.

staticassertion 7y ago
I just reviewed roughly 20 vendors. Doesn't feel crowded at all when they all basically do the same thing. There's a ton of room in this space for real innovation. Instead, as mentioned, we get substitutes for innovation, like "AI". If infosec weren't a dark horse, we wouldn't be miserably to protect against breaches. Clearly there is a need not being addressed.
cik 7y ago
Concur, also from inside the industry. The reality is that almost every C-Suite executive I talk to sees security as a cost center, and rolls it (and IT even) into the CFO, or the COO. We focus on helping an organization make security an enabler. Yet even those customers who get it - really only care when there's a breach, or if someone's bacon has seriously been saved. Suffice it to say, I find the industry troubling, to say the least.
- staticassertion 7y ago
  Lots of things are cost centers. SRE is a cost center. OPS is a cost center. Companies still pay a fortune for services that optimize these areas. Hell, why do you think Splunk has 1 billion dollars to burn?
  - SamuelAdams 7y ago
    >Lots of things are cost centers. Agreed. If you boil it all down, the only things that are "profit centers" are either Marketing or Sales. Everything else is a cost. When a company I work for begins putting its employees into boxes like that, I look for a quick exit. It's only a matter of time before the C-level staff start reducing those "cost-centers" to a few overworked, underpaid staff.

bpicolo 7y ago

Signalfx isn't a cyber security company, it's an application metrics company (think graphite/prometheus as a service)

dvfb 7y ago

Signal is in the monitoring space rather then cyber security.. still a relevant point though.. monitoring is very overlooked

codesushi42 7y ago
Splunk is a cyber security company.
- falsedan 7y ago
  I thought it was log aggregation and search.
  - tomlong 7y ago
    They have an 'Enterprise Security' product sitting on their platform which is pretty powerful and a fairly big player in this space.
  - occamsrazorwit 7y ago
    Splunk is a platform for log aggregation and search. There are use cases (apps) built on top of it which include infrastructure monitoring and cybersecurity.

plolio 7y ago

In my experience the hardest part is proving that your cyber security company adds value to your customers. It feels like companies finally understand the value proposition after many years of negligence.