Technically Speaking Segment: A brief interview with Kevin O’Brien of GreatHorn about innovative cloud-based solutions the world should know about.
“Comprehensive targeted attack protection — without the drawbacks of legacy tools.”
About the Interviewer:
Moira Alexander is a contributor and co-host of the “technically speaking” segment on the Price of Business Talk Radio (on the BizTalkRadio Network), whom you can learn more about at www.leadhershipgroup.com. She recently interviewed Kevin O’Brien of GreatHorn (as part of a series of interviews) to find out about innovative cloud-based solutions the world should know about.
About GreatHorn:
GreatHorn is the world’s first next-generation email security solution. Built on a foundation of machine learning, automation, and cloud-native technology, GreatHorn protects organizations against today’s biggest cybersecurity threat: targeted phishing attacks that leverage social engineering techniques to compromise access to data, credentials, and financial resources.
About the interviewee:
Kevin O’Brien has over 20 years of experience in the Boston cybersecurity scene. He was an early member of the @stake team (now Symantec), Cloudlock (acquired by Cisco for $300 million), and Conjur (acquired by CyberArk), and is now co-founder and CEO of GreatHorn, which provides next-generation anti-phishing and email security solutions to Fortune 500 companies. GreatHorn was a 2017 RSAC Innovation Sandbox finalist and was recently recognized by Gartner as a 2017 “Cool Vendor” for its disruptive approach to cloud communications security.
O’Brien is a frequent panelist and often-cited cybersecurity expert, providing insightful commentary in media, at major conferences and with user groups including NECN’s CEO Corner, MassTLC Security Symposium, the American Growth Capital West Coast Tech Conference, Microsoft’s Innovation Outreach Program’s annual event in NYC, The RSA Conference and Microsoft’s Emerging Tech Virtual Summit. He is also an influential voice in the Massachusetts cybersecurity scene, as a member of Gov. Baker’s ad hoc cybersecurity council, a co-chair of Mass TLC’s Security cluster and a TechStars Mentor in Residence.
Tell me about the key features of your product or service?
Kevin: Highly targeted social engineering attacks cause more than 90% of all data breaches and have been responsible for >$3.1B in damages since 2014. As companies increasingly transition from on-premise email infrastructure to cloud-based services like G Suite and Office 365, legacy security tools like Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) have failed to keep up with today’s sophisticated attacks.
Gateway technologies provide no defense against “post-delivery” threats: messages that have no attachments or malicious links to be detected at the perimeter, and which frequently trick users into giving up sensitive information, executing wire transfers, or giving up access credentials.
GreatHorn uniquely solves for these threats, providing cloud-native email security solutions for enterprises using cloud-based email systems. Deploying in minutes, and without any of the drawbacks of legacy email gateways, GreatHorn brings machine learning, automation, and global threat intelligence to bear on today’s targeted attacks, and protects some of the world’s most recognizable brands from sophisticated email threats.
What makes your product or service so innovative, and what are the hot button issues it addresses for companies?
Kevin: GreatHorn has architected a new way of securing email, rethinking traditional communications security from the ground up. By using automated data science techniques to assess trust during users’ interaction within these platforms – rather than attempting to block malicious attacks at the perimeter – GreatHorn has established a modern, autonomic, confidence-enabling model for businesses that have or will shortly embrace cloud technologies for their core business applications.
GreatHorn is differentiated from existing email security solutions in three key ways:
- GreatHorn’s cloud-native design eliminates the need for a gateway and provides continuous monitoring and control over mail even after it’s been delivered — unlike the single-point-in-time protection of a SEG.
- GreatHorn’s machine-learning approach and data architecture provides unmatched threat detection capabilities, aggregating de-identified data across every customer to improve the accuracy of the threat detection platform for each individual client.
GreatHorn’s threat intelligence arms organizations with data that can’t be seen in-house, driving down time-to-detection and increasing efficiency; insights across the GreatHorn Data Cloud continuously increase with intelligence on both emergent and historical threats, and on average, saves information security teams over 60 hours of research and remediation every week.
- GreatHorn’s technical design extends beyond just email, allowing for identification of threats in any communication medium where the tactics of phishing could occur, including collaboration and chat platforms like Slack, or in-house developed systems at our clients, or even in other off-the-shelf messaging systems that can be programmatically exposed to GreatHorn’s machine learning infrastructure for threat detection and response.
To find out more about GreatHorn contact Kevin below.
Kevin O’Brien, CEO, and Founder of GreatHorn
Email: info@greathorn.com
Phone: 1.800.604.2566
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More about the “Technically Speaking” segment co-host:
Moira Alexander is the founder & president of Lead-Her-Ship Group, a content strategy & creation company, and author of “LEAD or LAG.” Moira is a media recognized expert with 20+ years in business, IT, project management, content strategy and content creation. She is a project management and IT columnist for CIO and TechRepublic and creates high-value content for digital media companies, small to large businesses, and thought leaders around the world. Her company has also just launched a new PR service for small to mid-sized tech companies. To find out more about Moira or her company’s services, go to www.leadhershipgroup.com.
