With threat vectors constantly evolving and cybercriminals becoming more sophisticated in executing their tools, channel partners, CIOs and CISOs face daunting challenges in their quest to protect against sophisticated cyber breaches. For Safe Security, a global cyber-risk quantification company that helps businesses measure, manage, and mitigate cyber-risks in real time through its SaaS platform SAFE, providing a more holistic, enterprise-wide visibility of cyber-risks, rather than offering siloed visibility has put the vendor in pole position to dominate the EMEA channel with its cyber-risk quantification approach. Saket Modi, Co-founder and CEO, Safe Security, tells Intelligent Tech Channels how the company is developing its channel business and working with partners in the broader EMEA region.
Talk us through what Safe Security is and what offerings do you have for channel partners in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)?
Safe Security is a global leader in cyber-risk quantification, and we help businesses measure, manage and mitigate cyber-risks in real time through our SaaS platform SAFE. SAFE uses a Bayesian network-based scoring model co-developed with MiT, that continuously integrates cybersecurity signals from people, policies, technology, cybersecurity products, and third parties and generates a probability of a breach occurring in the organisation. In other words, a SAFE score (on a scale of 0 to 5) is a function of an organisation’s breach-likelihood and the businesses consequences. The higher the SAFE Score, the lower is the likelihood of getting breached, and vice versa.
SAFE is a unique proposition for channel partners as it enables them to be the trusted end-to-end cybersecurity advisors for their customers, rather than being box/solution sellers. For example, our partners include SAFE into their managed security service offering or SAFE is layered over the licences they are selling to customers to ensure seamless deployment, onboarding, and maintenance. Our internal team works cohesively with MSSPs to ensure businesses get the best that is available. This opens up the opportunity for partners to be more relevant and meshes well with their own services. We have a very aggressive growth strategy, and strategic collaborations with channel partners in the EMEA region will be key to our growth, globally.
Which countries in the EMEA region are a key focus for Safe Security’s business development strategy for this year?
We are evaluating different opportunities across the EMEA region but are seeing increased interest for our product especially in the UK and Middle East region.
How has Safe Security positioned itself against competitors in the cybersecurity solutions space in EMEA?
We do not have a direct competitor today. However, there are companies which compete with us across different parts of our offering. Interestingly, we are replacing these companies in most organisations as SAFE provides a more holistic, enterprise-wide visibility of cyber-risks, rather than offering siloed visibility.
How is Safe Security developing its channel business in the EMEA region and what type of channel partners is the company looking to work with?
Because of our unique offering, we are looking to partner with different kinds of channel partners starting from systems integrators (Sis) to MSSP players and more. We very recently announced our strategic partnership with StarLink in the region and are aggressively looking at more partners across EMEA.
Is Safe Security working with managed security service providers (MSSPs)?
Yes, we are working with various MSSP players globally. Most recently, we announced BT’s investment into Safe Security, and they are bundling SAFE with their MSSP offering across geographies.
How is Safe Security ramping up its channel initiatives and solution offerings in the EMEA region and which industry verticals are increasingly using the company’s services and solutions?
We have recently entered the EMEA region and are ramping up our channel initiatives and signing on new partners as we speak. In terms of industry verticals, we are seeing great adoption from financial services, healthcare and oil and energy businesses.
Given that some companies have adopted a hybrid working policy, how is Safe Security positioning itself to ensure that a lot of businesses in EMEA are using the company’s cybersecurity offerings?
This is a great question. One of the biggest challenges in the cybersecurity industry today is the lack of a cohesive and predictive approach to manage workforce cyber-risks. One of the big use cases of SAFE today is workforce risk quantification and management, and this has become even more important in today’s remote and hybrid workplaces.
Businesses deploy multiple tools to manage employee threats across their role, access, attack exposure, behaviours, devices, and awareness. However, the data generated from each tool is siloed, and non-contextual. SAFE provides continuous monitoring of employees’ cybersecurity awareness, behaviour, mobile devices, deep and dark web exposures, and aggregates signals across already deployed tools to provide a breach-likelihood per employee, that rolls up to the employee breach likelihood of the business. SAFE offers mobile and web-based applications to engage with every employee making cybersecurity learning a customised and engaging experience while assessing their readiness. We are seeing a lot of interest in this particular use case across the EMEA and US.
Is Safe Security planning to open an office in Dubai anytime soon?
We are growing rapidly in the Middle East region and already have a strong team based out of Dubai. We will definitely evaluate opening up offices in Dubai and other regions in EMEA in the upcoming quarters.
How has Safe Security positioned its business to channel partners (IT resellers, systems integrators, solution providers, value-added resellers, IT distributors, MSPs MSSPs and value-added distributors) and enterprise organisations in EMEA?
SAFE removes silos and reactive cybersecurity and adds a business context to it. With the right expertise of partners, mitigating vulnerabilities will be efficient and ultimately customers will be able to manage cybersecurity risk as a part of their enterprise risk strategy. This enables businesses to measure, manage and mitigate risks in real-time and significantly reduce the time to identify the most critical gaps, prioritise mitigation plans and enhance their capabilities to predict potential breaches before they occur.
Like I mentioned above, this provides a unique opportunity for channel partners to become the trusted cybersecurity advisors for their customers and provide real ROI on cybersecurity initiatives and investments.
Does Safe Security have a channel programme or planning to recruit channel partners in EMEA?
Yes, we have a robust channel programme and are recruiting more channel partners across the globe at the moment.
What challenges do channel partners, CIOs, CISOs face now that threat vectors are constantly evolving with cybercriminals becoming more sophisticated in executing their tools?
In my opinion, cybersecurity today is fundamentally broken. It is siloed, highly reactive, and does not talk the language of business. The biggest challenge in enterprise cybersecurity is the disconnect between security products and business units. In today’s digitised world, organisations need to ensure data security regardless of where and how it is accessed. Cybersecurity teams need to know the real-time risk postures across their business. They need to adopt a platform that can provide an aggregated view of cyber-risks across five vectors – people, policy, technology, cybersecurity products and third parties, on a single dashboard, and their potential financial value at risk if a data breach occurs.
How would you paint the IT and cyberthreat landscape in EMEA?
Cyberattacks are continually on the rise in frequency, sophistication, and expense; it’s not a matter of if, but when, a cyberattack will impact an organisation. Organisations globally still continue to depend on traditional methods of managing cyber-risk which are siloed and reactive. For example, a firewall tells you only about network security, antivirus products tell you only about endpoint security, and a SOC alerts you to a cyber incident only after it has occurred. As the sophistication of cyberattacks grow, organisations need to start looking at platforms which offer a more proactive and predictive approach to enterprise cyber-risk management.
Amid all these changes happening in the IT industry and cybersecurity space, how is Safe Security positioning itself in the market?
SAFE simplifies cybersecurity. It tells businesses where their biggest cyber-risks lie, how to mitigate them, and how much the risks might cost them in case of a data breach. It takes the guesswork out of cybersecurity and unifies existing cybersecurity signals to a single integrated dashboard. With SAFE, customers can know their likelihood of being breached, get prioritised actionable insights, and determine the potential financial impact of a data breach within the next 12 months. This is unique and helps business leaders speak the one language everyone understands – dollar value at risk.
How have your operations globally been spread and what is the total work force?
We have strong presence in US, Europe, Middle East, India, Singapore, Australia, and other countries in the APAC region and already have a workforce of 200 spread across these regions
What does the outlook for Safe Security look like in the next 12 to 18 months?
We have been growing at a pace of 300% year on year, and we are looking to continue on this trajectory in the next 12 to 18 months and build our channel and customer base globally.
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