Netwrix merges with Stealthbits. iboss secures $145 million in funding.

By the CyberWire staff

At a glance.

Netwrix merges with Stealthbits.
iboss secures $145 million in funding.
A look at the future of the cyber insurance industry.

Mergers and acquisitions.

Irvine, California-based data security company Netwrix has merged with New Jersey-headquartered data access governance provider Stealthbits. Netwrix's press release states, "The combined entity will continue to offer its complete portfolio of more than a half dozen security solutions aimed at identifying and detecting data security risk as well as protecting, responding and recovering from cybersecurity attacks....With over 500 employees and customers from more than 50 countries, the combined company will operate as Netwrix with Steve Dickson continuing to serve as its chief executive officer and on the company's Board of Directors. Steve Cochran, founder and chairman of Stealthbits, will be an investor in Netwrix and will serve on its Board of Directors." The company adds, "For the foreseeable future, customers, prospects and partners of each company will continue to interact with each company as they do today for sales, support and partner activity."

White Ops, a bot mitigation and ad fraud prevention firm based in New York, has been acquired by Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division, in partnership with ClearSky Security and NightDragon. The company says "The acquisition will support White Ops in its next phase of growth and further accelerate its expansion into new markets." Their press release adds, "In addition to representatives from Goldman Sachs, Jay Leek will join the Board of Directors representing ClearSky and Dave DeWalt will join the Board of Directors representing NightDragon and serve as Vice Chairman of the Company."

Arizona-based cybersecurity consultancy Cerberus Sentinel has acquired Alpine Security, a cybersecurity services firm headquartered in Missouri. The company's press release states, "Alpine will continue to be based in St. Louis, and its compliance team will add to the experienced Cerberus Sentinel team led by chief compliance officer Baan Alsinawi. The penetration testing team will be integrated into the existing capabilities crew at Cerberus Sentinel, and it will continue to specialize in medical devices, addressing the expanding demand from healthcare clients."

Aliso Viejo, California-based IT management and security firm Quest Software has acquired New York-headquartered data governance company erwin, Inc from Parallax Capital Partners. Quest stated, "Erwin's solutions strengthen Quest's market-leading data toolset, adding new capabilities to drive significant data initiatives and the deployment of modern applications while ensuring regulatory compliance."

Kaspersky has acquired a stake in Nexway, an e-commerce and online payment platform headquartered in Paris. Kaspersky's Chief Business Officer Alexander Moiseev stated, "Nexway will remain a separate company with its own management, processes, and reporting, in accordance with all European laws and regulations. We will limit our input to technological expertise and strategic direction." Moiseev says Kaspersky's goal is to help Nexway build "the safest, most ethical, and most open online trading ecosystem possible, optimized in particular for players in the field of cybersecurity."

Investments and exits.

Boston-based SASE cloud security provider iboss has raised $145 million in a funding round led by NightDragon and Francisco Partners. Iboss says the funding will be "used to support the company’s rapid growth." Dave DeWalt, founder of NightDragon and co-chairman of iboss, stated, "iboss has created the largest, most modern and comprehensive SASE security platform on the market and is the only platform that can fully transition organizations from on-prem security appliances to SaaS security delivered in the cloud. What makes this stronger is that iboss is an open security platform that allows organizations to apply the security engines and log analytics platforms of their choosing compared to existing closed SASE solutions that lack this flexibility and restrict better security due to lack of collaboration with top cybersecurity intelligence vendors."

Executive moves.

O’Melveny has added data privacy lawyer Tod Cohen as a partner. Cohen most recently served as Twitter's Deputy General Counsel and Vice President, where he managed the company's Global Office of Data Protection. Cohen told Law.com that he "found that the issues that matter to clients, the most difficult, most challenging, most cutting-edge legal issues are handled by outside counsel."

Booz Allen Hamilton has hired Andrew Turner as Executive Vice President and Market Strategy Leader for its global commercial business. Turner most recently served as Chief Security Officer at Fidelity National Information Services (FIS).

LIFARS has appointed Gaspare J. Marturano as Chief Marketing Officer. Gaspare was previously Director of Marketing and Information Technology at Ventura Law.

Proofpoint has hired Joe Sykora as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channels and Partner Sales, CRN reports. Sykora previously served as Vice President of Global Sales and Channels at Bitdefender.

Companies in the news: a coming growth in cyber insurance.

Crunchbase News cites investors who believe the cyber insurance market will see more activity as cyber incidents increase. Mark Sherman, managing director at Telstra Ventures, told the publication that "the number of risks and attacks has increased to a level such that it is so commonplace." Sherman says his firm is "likely to make another insurance-related investment." Matt Kinsella, managing director at Maverick Ventures, told Crunchbase, "It’s still a pretty young industry, so you have to give it time. It is growing fast, but it is in a sector like insurance that traditionally is slow to change."

Why might ransomware operators be interested in their victims' insurance policies?

And ransomware operators seem to be taking an interest in how their victims are indemnified. 2021's first new strain of ransomware, Babuk Locker, is out in the wild, according to BleepingComputer. It's assessed as "amateurish," but the hoods’ negotiating messages are interesting in two respects: they ask the victim if they’re covered by cyber insurance, and whether they're working with a ransomware recovery company. This would seem to suggest that the criminals are looking to insurance companies and security firms as, effectively, middlemen, presumably thinking that those third parties might be counted on to persuade the victim to pay up. That's increasingly looking unwise, as both law and sound practice are moving away from considering ransom payments as an acceptable option in these cases. By all means consider cyber insurance, but think twice about using it to pay ransom.

And security innovation.

The Startup Pill has compiled a list of 101 cybersecurity startups to keep an eye on in 2021. Topping the list are Beyond Identity, a passwordless identity management provider based in New York City; Cyble, a cyber intelligence firm headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia; Fast, a secure e-commerce platform provider based in San Francisco; Deduce, a New York City-based account takeover prevention company; and Cowbell Cyber, a cyber insurance and risk assessment firm headquartered in Pleasanton, California.

Marketplace.

Leading SASE Cloud Security Provider iboss Raises $145 Million to Support Company's Rapid Growth in $25B Expanding Market (Yahoo) iboss, the leader in cloud delivered network security, announces it has raised $145 million in new funding. The financing will be used to support the company's rapid growth as organizations increasingly recognize iboss as the leading provider of cutting-edge network security through the cloud.

Data Security Providers Netwrix and Stealthbits Merge (SecurityWeek) The combined entity will continue to offer security solutions for data security risk detection and cyber-attack protection, response, and recovery.

Quest Software Acquires erwin, Inc. to Enable Organizations to Fully Harness the Business Benefits of Data (Quest) Erwin adds industry-leading data modeling, data governance, and business process modeling solutions to Quest portfolio. Organizations benefit from Quest's end-to-end capabilities to better understand and govern data in use across their enterprise...

101 Best Cyber Security Startups To Follow In 2021 (The Startup Pill) This article showcases Startup Pill's top picks for the best Cyber Security startups. These startups are taking a variety of approaches to innovating inside of the Cyber Security industry and around the world. They are all exceptional startups well worth a follow. We selected these startups for exceptional performance in one of these categories: InnovationInnovative

2020 was a record year for Israel’s security startup ecosystem (TechCrunch) The start of a new year presents the perfect opportunity to reflect on the annual performance of our focus, the Israeli cybersecurity ecosystem.

Defense Digital Service Kicks Off Third ‘Hack the Army’ Bug Bounty Challenge with HackerOne (HackerOne) Military and civilian hackers invited to discover and disclose vulnerabilities in digital assets affiliated with the largest branch of the U.S. Military

NYSE Mulls Reverting to Original Plan to Delist China Shares (Bloomberg) Possible reversal follows Mnuchin call to NYSE’s Cunningham. Exchange’s surprise announcement caught White House off guard.

More Cyber Attacks Could Spur On Insurance Space (Crunchbase News) Although investment in cyber insurance made up a small percentage of the nearly $6.5 billion invested in cybersecurity in the U.S. last year, those who watch the area think that could start to change soon, perhaps even this year.

Top 10 Must-Have Cybersecurity Skills for Career Success (SearchSecurity) What are the cybersecurity skills that advance security careers? We consulted with experts to come up with a top 10 list, including eight technical skills in high demand and two all-important soft skills.

The Top Cybersecurity Certifications in 2021 (IT Security Expert) A UK view on Cyber (IT Security) & Information Security. Covers everything Computer Security from the basics to the advanced

App Development Security is the most wanted cybersecurity skill in 2021 (Atlas VPN) According to the data presented by the [Atlas VPN](https://atlasvpn.com/) team, the fastest-growing cybersecurity skill in 2021 is Application Development Security. The demand for this competence is determined to rise by 164% in five years.

Cybersecurity Firm Iboss Raises $145 Million as Cloud Market Stays Hot (Wall Street Journal) The shift to remote work during the coronavirus pandemic helped turn cloud-native cybersecurity companies into Wall Street darlings. Iboss wants to join the party.

NYSE says it will no longer delist three Chinese telecom giants (CNBC) The NYSE reversed an announcement four days earlier that it would delist American depositary shares of China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom.

Looming Delisting Jolts Chinese Telecom Stocks (Wall Street Journal) Shares in China’s three large telecom carriers were roiled, after the New York Stock Exchange moved to delist the trio to comply with a U.S. ban.

Huawei looks to cloud services as US sanctions hit smartphone business (South China Morning Post) Firm’s founder Ren Zhengfei says the Chinese giant should learn from global leaders Amazon and Microsoft.

Google, Alphabet employees unionize (TechCrunch) A group of more than 200 Google and Alphabet workers have announced the formation of the Alphabet Workers Union, The New York Times first reported. With the help of Communication Workers of America Union’s Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), the union will be open to both emplo…

In Georgia, Facebook’s Changes Brought Back a Partisan News Feed (The Markup) Ahead of crucial senate runoffs, Facebook reversed its political ad ban, and the impact was visible on users’ feeds

ARCYBER, Georgia Cyber Center's partnership already paying off (WFXG) It’s a courtship year in the making, and now the partnership between Army Cyber Command and the Georgia Cyber Center is paying dividends all across the CSRA.

OPSWAT Relocates Corporate Headquarters to Tampa (PR Newswire) OPSWAT, a leader in critical infrastructure protection (CIP) and trusted by more than 1,000 global organizations for providing comprehensive...

RevBits recognized as one of the Top 25 Cybersecurity Companies of 2020 (PR Newswire) RevBits today announced it made the list of Top 25 Cybersecurity Companies of 2020 as presented by The Software Report. The companies selected...

Cysiv Listed as a Representative Vendor in Gartner's 2020 Market Guide for Managed Security Services (PR Newswire) Cysiv Inc., an innovator in the provision of security operations center (SOC)-as-a-Service, today announced that it has been identified as a...

Cyber Startups Face Broader Funding Challenge in 2021 (Wall Street Journal) Companies that want to attract funding will have to move beyond established niches, while competing with global rivals and enduring greater scrutiny than in the past, venture firms say.

NYSE to Delist Chinese Telco Giants on U.S. Executive Order (Bloomberg) Exchange will remove China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom. Latest trade war fracas follows battle for IPOs with Hong Kong.

China warns of retaliation for NYSE's delisting of companies (Bay News 9) China says it will take necessary countermeasures in response to the New York Stock Exchange’s announcement this week that it will delist three major Chinese telecoms, in the latest flare-up of tensions between Beijing and Washington

The SolarWinds Breach Reinforces Why Boards And Audit Committees Need More Tech Expertise (Forbes) Boards’ ability to monitor cybersecurity is hampered by directors' experience, outdated committee charters and fragmented oversight. Five meaningful actions by boards, audit committees and executives can change that.

Wall Street Seeks the Upside in an Historic Hack (Barron's) The attack that may have exposed 18,000 SolarWinds’ customers also brought a lot of attention to the importance of cybersecurity. That had Wall Street analysts revising their views of the industry and the stocks.

'What's the alternative?' SolarWinds boosts security firms' bottom lines (Reuters) Cybersecurity providers including FireEye Inc and Microsoft Corp could not prevent a huge network breach disclosed this month by numerous U.S. agencies and companies, yet their shares are soaring for a second straight week.

Privacy Management Firm OneTrust Secures $300M at $5.1B Valuation (SecurityWeek) OneTrust, a provider of privacy, security and data governance tools, announced a $300 million Series C funding round led by new investor TCV.

Cerberus Sentinel Announces Acquisition of Alpine Security (GlobeNewswire) U.S. cybersecurity services firm expands compliance and penetration testing teams

Kaspersky acquires Nexway to increase online sales channel (Borneo Bulletin Online) Kaspersky has acquired a stake in Nexway, a leading e-commerce and payment platform, to strengthen its position and increase opportunities for the company’s online sales channel. In a statement, Nexway said it will remain a separate entity, managed by its current leadership team in accordance with the European rules and regulations, with Kaspersky’s […]

Goldman Sachs leads acquisition of bot mitigation company White Ops (VentureBeat) White Ops, a fraud detection platform that protects enterprises from automated attacks, has been acquired by Goldman Sachs and others.

Zix acquires CloudAlly backup for SaaS data protection (SearchDataBackup) It's a crucial time for cybersecurity and backup. With its acquisition of CloudAlly backup, email security provider Zix added important protection of SaaS applications.

FireEye Needs to Keep the Heat On (Wall Street Journal) The SolarWinds hack has boosted shares of the former cybersecurity star, but the benefits aren’t so clear-cut.

Telia to remove all Huawei equipment in Lithuania (ET Telecom) Sweden's Telia Company will replace all 4G telecoms equipment from Huawei in Lithuania and will not use it for 5G networks, due to the geopolitical si..

Finland’s Champion Nokia Is Letting the Side Down on Huawei and 5G (Washington Post) Pekka Lundmark has a lot resting on his shoulders. As chief executive officer of Nokia Oyj, he’s tasked with turning around the stuttering telecoms giant’s fortunes before it misses out on the 5G revolution. Also riding on his success, however, is the ability of the world’s industrialized economies to compete with China.

Hacker earns $2 million in bug bounties on HackerOne (BleepingComputer) Cosmin Iordache is the first bug bounty hunter to earn more than $2,000,000 in bounty awards through the vulnerability coordination and bug bounty program HackerOne.

Hundreds of Google Employees Unionize, Culminating Years of Activism (New York Times) The creation of the union, a rarity in Silicon Valley, follows years of increasing outspokenness by Google workers. Executives have struggled to handle the change.

Cisco stops selling Kinetic for Cities product, shifting 'smart city' product strategy (Silicon Valley Business Journal) The San Jose networking giant is changing its approach to "smart city" technology, which uses sensors and other electronic methods to collect data from traffic lights, water supply networks and other municipal infrastructure.

Nice Try, Facebook. iOS Changes Aren’t Bad for Small Businesses (Wired) The social media giant would have you believe that Apple’s privacy update will hurt the little guys. But Facebook’s motives aren’t so altruistic.

Facebook Managers Trash Their Own Ad Targeting in Unsealed Remarks (The Intercept) The internal documents suggest that Facebook should stop positioning itself as a champion of small business.

Forbes Cybersecurity Awards 2020: Corellium, The Tiny Startup Driving Apple Crazy (Forbes) It’s a dangerous internet out there, but there are some champions trying to make the online world safer. Our inaugural Forbes Cybersecurity Awards celebrate their achievements.

10 Hot Cybersecurity Companies You Should Watch In 2021 (CRN) Top cybersecurity companies to watch in 2021 include Palo Alto Networks, Rapid7 and CrowdStrike.

Awards winner The Keyholding Company blends physical and cyber security (Computing) The Keyholding Company built a totally custom service delivery platform with partner Haulmont – and the benefits have been clear

Booz Allen Leads New Frost & Sullivan Security Report (AiThority) Frost & Sullivan, a leading market research and strategy firm, ranked Booz Allen Hamilton as holding the largest single market share

Booz Allen Hamilton Hires Cybersecurity Expert Andrew Turner (MSSP Alert) Booz Allen Hamilton, which has a Top 250 MSSP business, hires former Visa & Microsoft cybersecurity leader Andrew Turner as EVP of global commercial business.

Products, services, and solutions.

SolarWinds Orion/SUNBURST - Armis Can See Impacted Devices & Attacks | Armis (Armis) After the news broke that the U.S. Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security had been hacked using exploits in SolarWinds Orion, more information has been coming to light almost daily. It is now clear that the exploit has been leveraged broadly by state actors and it is imperative that everyone who uses SolarWinds knows if they are vulnerable. Armis can help identify the vulnerable devices and malicious traffic & behavior associated with the breach.

Bird Levels Up Micromobility ID Verification with AU10TIX to Prevent Underage Riding (AU10TIX) Today, Bird published the following blog to announce its partnership with AU10TIX: “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Verizon indefinitely delays 3G network shutdown (Light Reading) First Verizon planned to shutter its 3G network at the end of 2019. Then it delayed that plan to the end of 2020. Now, Verizon says 'we don't have a plan to shut it down at this time.'

WatServ Provides Innovative, Multi-Cloud Solutions with Alert Logic's Managed Detection and Response Capabilities (PR Newswire) WatServ, an IT solutions provider helping organizations digitally transform their businesses through cloud technologies and services, is proud...

Coalfire Collaborates With AWS On Compliance Automation (PR Newswire) Coalfire, a provider of cybersecurity advisory and assessment services, today announced it is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to deploy...

BackupAssist Partners with Wasabi to Deliver Disruptive Price and Performance Model for Cyber-Resilient Data Backup (PR Newswire) BackupAssist®, the leading provider of automated backup and recovery software for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), today announced Wasabi,...

Cyber security company helps kids, parents sort out facts from fiction online (ABC7 Chicago) Lynette Owens talked about the tool and how Trend Micro is working to fight misinformation.

CrowdStrike Launches Free Tool to Identify & Mitigate Risks in Azure Active Directory | CrowdStrike (CrowdStrike) CrowdStrike launches free community tool to help organizations quickly & easily review their Azure AD environment for weaknesses. Learn more here!

Signal Fires Back: Cellebrite Can’t Break Our App Encryption (iPhone in Canada Blog) In response to a BBC article that all but congratulated Cellebrite on cracking Signal’s encryption, the communication app clarified that Cellebrite can actually not bypass its encryption.

Germany's Secunet to provide cyber-protection for EU Secret (Intelligence Online) The European Union (EU), which would like member states' intelligence services to step up their information-sharing, has hired the German cryptography company Secunet to protect European institutions' classified EU Secret information.

IBM Security unveils next-level data encryption for mainstream use (Back End News) IBM unveils its next-level encryption technology to offer organizations a more secure form of communications. IBM Security Homomorphic Encryption is a new service designed to keep any data or file …

VMware Adds Container Security to Carbon Black Cloud (SDxCentral) VMware added container security to Carbon Black Cloud, its endpoint and workload platform. It uses technology acquired from Octarine.

Axio Offers Free Coverage Analysis for SolarWinds Impacts (Yahoo) Axio, a leading cyber risk management Software-as-a-Service company, today launched a limited time offering, through January 31, 2021, to perform a rapid analysis of insurance coverage in the wake of the SolarWinds event.

Scalable remote access with VMSS enhances Azure security (Check Point Software) Azure security is enhanced by Check Point CloudGuard. Learn how to provide scalable remote access using Azure VMSS.

Business Leaders Encouraged to Engage a Personal Cyber Security Trainer (PRWeb) A NYC area IT security consultant and MSP reviews three common business cyber security threats and urges business leaders to consult a cyber security exper

AESI Acumen Engineered Solutions International Inc./ AESI-US Inc. (‘AESI’) simplifies mission-critical security operations with Check Point Software (Check Point Software) By Amit Sharon, Head of Global Customer Community & Market Intelligence, Check Point Software A consulting company gains cloud-based security

People.

Top Internet and Data Privacy Lawyer Tod Cohen Joins O’Melveny (O’Melveny) O’Melveny announced today that one of the nation’s top data privacy and policy experts, Tod Cohen, has joined the firm as a partner.

Morrison & Foerster Elects Nine Partners (Morrison & Foerster) Morrison & Foerster, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce the election of nine lawyers to the firm’s partnership, effective January 1, 2021. The class of 2021 includes lawyers from a wide range of thriving practices across seven offices in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

LIFARS Appoints Gaspare J. Marturano as Chief Marketing Officer (LIFARS) LIFARS, a leading cybersecurity firm with specialized services in digital forensics, incident response, cyber resiliency, LIFARS Appoints Gaspare J. Marturano as Chief Marketing Officer

Proofpoint Snags Bitdefender Vet Joe Sykora To Lead Channels (CRN) Proofpoint has brought on longtime Bitdefender and Fortinet partner leader Joe Sykora to serve as the fast-growing email security vendor’s first-ever global channel chief.

Netwrix merges with Stealthbits. iboss secures $145 million in funding. A look at the future of the cyber insurance industry.