Start-up rolls out global channel program, hires industry vet Carrie Roberts to lead partner efforts

Cybersecurity start-up CyCognito, almost two months after announcing a $30 million investment round, is launching a channel program to expand the reach of its platform, which is designed to help enterprises identify exposed systems and eliminate the risk to them.

The Lowdown: The 3-year-old company also this week announced that Carrie Roberts, who has more than two decades of channel experience, has been named its senior director of global channel sales.

The Details: When announcing the $30 million funding round in June, CyCognito co-founder and CEO Rob Gurzeev said the infusion of money would enable the Palo Alto, California-based company to increase its market reach.



The new CyCognito Global Channel Program will help with that effort. Officials say it’s a 100% channel company that offers low customer acquisition costs and requires no technical training on the part of the partner. There also is nothing to install in the customer environment and CyCognito ensures deal registration protection.



CyCognito’s platform uses techniques similar to cybercriminals to find undetected and vulnerable pathways into a customer’s systems that the customer may not know about. It includes a global bot network to scan, detect, and fingerprint assets all over the world and also offers capabilities like risk-based vulnerability management, risk monitoring, and security assessments.



The company embraces what it calls the POLaR concept – the path of least resistance – to help companies reduce hidden risks, some of which the customer may not know about. Attackers take similar steps – the paths of least resistance – to find the easiest and least secured ways to compromise organizations.

The Impact: With the number of threats and their level of sophistication increasing, even as the security skill gap continues to widen, companies are increasingly looking to channel partners to help them secure their decentralized environments. CyCognito’s platform is one more tool that partners can offer businesses that don’t have the time or resources to put together and manage a comprehensive security system themselves.

Background: The $30 million raised in June brought to $53 million the total amount the company has brought in since launching in 2017. Roberts comes to the company with experience with a range of security vendors, including Trend Micro, Security Mentor, Beyond Trust, and, most recently, Mimecast.

The Buzz: “The opportunity CyCognito presents to the channel is phenomenal,” Roberts said. “Joint customers across the globe will now have the ability to move from a reactive cybersecurity approach to a proactive strategy. Giving companies the power to identify not only unknown assets and risks but also the threats that may pose the biggest impact to their organization wasn’t possible before CyCognito. The CyCognito platform is both lightweight and powerful, making it a perfect fit for all types of partners, from systems integrators to resellers to managed service providers.”



“We are excited about the opportunity this partnership holds for our clients,” said Sheetal Mehta, senior vice president and chief information security officer at Wipro. “ Organizations can now have full visibility into their attack surface with the CyCognito platform while leveraging Wipro’s consulting and security expertise. Together, we want to help customers optimize their existing security investments while ensuring security policy is executed and adhered to.”



“Providing a visual and credible inventory and understanding how attackers see the entire Internet-exposed IT ecosystem, including, most importantly, those easy paths that attackers will take, provides us as partners with the ability to validate and enforce security policies for our customers,” said Stephen Harrison, managing partner and CEO of EverSec.