More Signal. Less Noise.

V4 | Issue 51 | 12.21.22

MariaDB completes business combination with Angel Pond Holdings Corporation. CyberCube raises $50 million in additional funding. Labor markets.

Summary

By the CyberWire staff

At a glance.

MariaDB completes business combination with Angel Pond Holdings Corporation.
CyberCube raises $50 million in additional funding.
Labor markets.

Mergers and acquisitions.

New generation cloud database company MariaDB has announced the completion of its business combination with previously publicly traded special purpose acquisition company Angel Pond Holdings Corporation, resulting in a combined Irish public limited company named MariaDB plc. “Today is an exciting day that marks a new chapter for MariaDB and an important milestone in the cloud industry,” said Michael Howard, CEO of MariaDB. “Our customers increasingly come to us because they are struggling with the scalability and availability offered by the hyperscalers. With MariaDB SkySQL, we deliver better price and performance while freeing businesses from vendor lock-in with a multicloud offering. I am incredibly proud to work with our talented team and our investors as we continue to build success in the cloud for companies around the world.”

Investments and exits.

CyberCube, a California-based cyber risk analytics company, has raised $50 million in additional growth capital from investment funds managed by Morgan Stanley Tactical Value, with participation from Forgepoint Capital, Hudson Structured Capital Management (Bermuda) Ltd., MTech Capital, and key investors from Stone Point Capital.

Germany-based cybersecurity startup VMRay has raised $34 million in Series B funding, led by Tikehau Capital, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds, eCapital, NRW.BANK and Gründerfonds Ruhr. The company plans to use the funding “to support expansion of its advanced threat detection and analysis services into new target markets.”

SaaS security company AppOmni, a California-headquartered organization, has received follow-on investments from TSG that will be used to “bolster AppOmni’s go-to-market expansion in EMEA and Asia/Pacific and the company’s product development — extending both breadth of SaaS app coverage and depth of functionality.”

Executive moves.

CyberArk has appointed Omer Grossman as the company’s Global Chief Information Officer.

The Kudelski Group has appointed Jacques Boschung as head of Kudelski Security, the cybersecurity division of the Group.

Semperis has named Jared Vichengrad as the company’s Vice President of Public Sector.

Sectigo has appointed Kevin Weiss as the company’s Chief Executive Officer.

Leidos has welcomed Darby LaJoye as the company’s Vice President and Strategic Account Executive for the Department of Homeland Security.

Plume has appointed Hannes Ametsreiter, Cody Sanford, and Mike Doonan to the company’s Board of Advisors.

Rubrik has appointed John W. Thompson as the Lead Independent Director for the company’s Board.

Ridgeback Network Defense has added Michael Wons and John Valente to the company as special advisors.

Ballistic Ventures has named David Hahn as the company’s inaugural CISO-in-Residence.

Traceable AI has named Stephen Jahn as the company’s Chief Financial Officer and John Schwan as the company’s VP of Channel and Alliances.

Company news.

Cloud security company Zscaler has announced its membership in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Joint Cyber Defense Collaborative (JCDC), Globe Newswire reports. The company says it’s working with the JCDC to enhance the cybersecurity posture of the United States, saying “Zscaler and the Zscaler ThreatLabz research team will analyze unique threat telemetry from 270+ billion transactions and 250,000 cloud updates per day – securing users globally. Additionally, Zscaler will participate in future cyber strategy planning with JCDC and its members.”

Labor markets.

While layoffs and setbacks have been at the forefront of cyber-related labor news, there is some good news to be shared. Royal Hansen, VP of engineering for privacy, safety, and security at Google, says that the company has trained over 40,000 people in India through its cybersecurity roadshows and developer sessions, Business Standard reports, as part of its desire to upskill 100,000. Amidst big tech’s layoffs, the US Department of Veterans Affairs is looking to fill 1,000 tech roles, Wired reports. BizTech Magazine highlights the importance of a shift in focus to more diverse talent pools in cybersecurity, with experts noting the capability of women (who only make up 25% of cybersecurity jobs, according to a 2022 Cybersecurity Ventures study) to fill the gaps in the labor market.

Policies, procurements, and agency equities.

The US Department of Homeland Security is asking for applications from small businesses as part of the department’s 2023 Science and Technology Directorate Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, seeking to address seven “technology needs,” Nextgov reports. The solicitation from the department, which came out last Thursday, seeks out proposals for analysis of “hardware generated data that would enable real-time, precise detection (>95%) and proactive protection against cyber-threats.”

National Cyber Director Chris Inglis has previewed the national cybersecurity strategy, highlighting plans to maintain government focus on software procurement, Nextgov reports. The strategy, anticipated to be released this fall, is still not finalized, but has begun the implementation of “steps to begin the process of rebuilding the country’s cybersecurity infrastructure.” Inglis also indicated plans to utilize software industry feedback from those working to streamline sector-specific regulations. (A side note: CNN reported this afternoon that Inglis intends to leave his White House post for retirement. No time is given for his departure, but it's expected to be soon.)

Expert commentary on cyber spending.

Richard Caralli, Senior Cybersecurity Advisor at Axio, discusses how organizations can best leverage existing staff and solutions to ensure that cybersecurity spending is properly allocated:

“Invest in cybersecurity training. More often than not, IT personnel who want to expand their skill sets are eager to take on cybersecurity training and knowledge. Not only is expanding the skills and performance of existing staff an investment in organizational competency, it gives a huge boost to staff morale.

“Rationalize your technology. Over time, technological solutions acquired to solve immediate problems can create technical debt that may end up in your security team’s blindspot as shelfware. Evaluate shelfware for opportunities to economize: eliminate solutions that are not providing value and repurpose technologies to address new or existing problems where possible.

“Quantify your cyber risk. All decisions, whether it be on staffing, technology acquisitions, or risk countermeasures, are often made in a vacuum without considerations for potential mitigation of risk. Quantifying cyber risk is an inexpensive and extremely effective way to understand cybersecurity exposures in terms of cost avoidance.”

Selected Reading

Marketplace

Channel Futures Names Arlin Sorensen of ConnectWise as one of the Top 20 Managed Services Channel Leaders for 2022 (GlobeNewswire News Room) Channel Futures’ Channel Leaders of the Year list features some of the biggest managed services suppliers in the industry who are stepping up to move the...

Tech’s Bust Delivers Bruising Blow to Hollowed-Out San Francisco (Bloomberg) Job cuts and remote work are colliding to reshape the center of American innovation.

Cybersecurity M&A Roundup for December 1-15, 2022 (SecurityWeek) A dozen cybersecurity-related merger and acquisition (M&A) deals were announced in the first half of December 2022.

Egnyte Maintains No. 1 Position in Multiple Data Security and Data Governance G2 Winter 2023 Reports (Egnyte) Egnyte, the secure platform for content collaboration and governance, today announced it has been named a leader and No. 1 ranked vendor by software marketplace G2 in several of its Winter 2023 reports.

Twitter investors divided on Musk moves (Axios) Musk owns Twitter, but outside investors helped finance his acquisition.

Musk Says Twitter Will Restrict Voting on Policy to Blue Members (Bloomberg) Twitter boss has yet to address poll calling for his exit. Musk promised to submit major policy decisions to votes.

Elon Wants Some Twitter Help (Bloomberg) Also a Twitter stock offering, Voyager, crypto auditors, muni blockchain and Bored Ape theft.

Facebook to pay hackers up to $300,000 to uncover remote code execution bugs (The Record by Recorded Future) Meta has updated its bug bounty program to offer up to $300,000 for reporting bugs allowing attackers to remotely execute code on its apps.

How Women Can Help Solve the Cyber Staffing Shortage (BizTech) Experts say that IT leaders can find success by investing in female staff and growing diverse teams.

Twitter Lays Off Engineers in Infrastructure Org, Days After Leaders Were Fired (The Information) Twitter laid off engineers in its infrastructure organization on Friday evening, reducing the staff in the part of the company that keeps the social media sevice running, according to a person familiar with the situation. The layoffs, which camedays after some leaders in the organization were ...

Elon Musk Seeks Additional Funds for Twitter (Wall Street Journal) Ross Gerber, a shareholder in Twitter and Tesla, says he has been approached to put more money into the social-media platform.

Even Elon Musk’s Allies Question Judgment After Link Ban, Account Suspensions (The Information) How chaotic has Elon Musk’s management of Twitter become? So chaotic that even longtime allies have started to get worried about the decision-making of Twitter’s new owner. Musk’s weekend careened from one soap opera to another, culminating in Twitter’s announcement Sunday morning of a new ...

No One on Twitter Is Safe From Elon Musk (Wired) The entrepreneur says he’s cracking down on doxing. Many see his account-blocking spree as self-serving.

Twitter suspends Mastodon's account and bans links to Mastodon servers (TechCrunch) Twitter suspended Mastodon's account Thursday after the social platform shared a link to someone who tracks Elon Musk's private jet.

Elon Tries (Badly) To Defend The Banning Of Journalists As Twitter Starts Blocking Links & Mentions Of Mastodon (Techdirt) Look, I fucking warned Elon that this is exactly how it would go. It’s how it always goes. Remember Parler? They promised that they would moderate “based off the FCC and the Supreme cou…

Elon Musk Appeared In A Twitter Space To Defend His Decision To Ban Journalists Who Reported On An Account That Tracked His Private Jet (BuzzFeed News) The embattled Twitter CEO briefly turned up in the Twitter Space hosted by BuzzFeed News tech reporter Katie Notopoulos.

Journalist suspensions widen rift between Twitter and media (AP NEWS) Elon Musk's abrupt suspension of several journalists who cover Twitter widens a growing rift between the social media site and media organizations that have used the platform to build their audiences.

Elon Musk reinstates Twitter accounts of suspended journalists (the Guardian) On a wild day of bans, sudden U-turns and chaotic messaging, Musk abides by Twitter poll result that favoured restoring the accounts of reporters he accused of ‘doxxing’ him

Twitter Reinstates Some Accounts of Suspended Journalists (Wall Street Journal) Elon Musk said he would lift the suspensions based on the results of a Twitter survey that asked users whether he should keep the accounts offline for a week or reinstate them immediately.

Musk unsuspends some reporters on Twitter. But their companies never left. (Washington Post) Despite outrage over a move viewed as hostile to free speech -- even by Musk’s conservative allies -- media companies continued to tweet, in keeping with their conflicted relationship with Twitter.

Elon Musk’s Twitter poll: 10 million say he should step down (the Guardian) Billionaire chief executive of Tesla insists there is no successor in the wings at social media platform

Elon Musk’s Twitter Poll Shows Users Want Him to Step Down (Wall Street Journal) The poll showed that 57.5% of respondents want him to leave as head of the social-media platform, bringing it fresh uncertainty.

Musk asks: Should I stay as CEO? (Computing) Elon Musk has launched an online poll asking users to decide whether or not he should step down as the company's CEO.

Elon Musk Polls Twitter Users, Asking Whether He Should Step Down (Wall Street Journal) Mr. Musk has led Twitter for a little over seven weeks, after buying the social-media platform in a deal valued at $44 billion.

WSJ News Exclusive | TikTok’s Efforts to Distance Itself From Chinese Parent Stumble Over Talent (Wall Street Journal) The short-video app is making big efforts to reduce ties with Beijing-based ByteDance, but it is still hiring staff in China for key functions.

Google has trained 40,000 people in cybersecurity so far: Vice President (Business Standard) The firm has committed to upskill 100,000 people, says Royal Hansen, adding that India was very similar to the US and Europe in terms of challenges and work in the domain of cybersecurity

Cyber Security Firm Volexity Expands Into Maryland (Commercial Observer) Volexity, a cyber security solutions company headquartered in Reston, Va., is expanding into Maryland

KuppingerCole Names SailPoint a Leader in Identity Governance Administration Security for 2022 (Business Wire) SailPoint ranked highest across the board for product, innovation, market position, and leadership for the fifth consecutive year

Elon Musk is now banning journalists and competitors on Twitter (Quartz) Musk's campaign for "free speech" has meant silencing his critics this week

Twitter suspends several journalists' accounts without warning (Computing) On Wednesday, the social networking platform modified its policies regarding accounts that tracked private jets

Twitter suspends accounts of several journalists who had reported on Elon Musk (the Guardian) Many at CNN, Washington Post and the New York Times who had written critically of the new owner found their handles suspended

Twitter suspends journalists who wrote about owner Elon Musk (AP NEWS) Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of journalists who cover the social media platform and its new owner Elon Musk, among them reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications.

Twitter Under Elon Musk Suspends Accounts of Several Journalists (Wall Street Journal) The social-media platform also blocked the official account of rival platform Mastodon, the latest instance of it making content or user decisions under Elon Musk without much transparency.

Twitter takes extreme steps to cut costs (Computing) Twitter is allegedly considering not paying severance packages to former employees and has stopped paying the rent on offices as it looks to cut costs.

Products, Services, and Solutions

How CyberCube helps assess risk for cyber insurance (VentureBeat) With the risk of cybercrime at an all-time high, cyber insurance company, CyberCube, announced $50M additional raised, for over $100M total.

Aisera Announces Integration of its AI-powered Service Experience Solution with Zendesk's Sunshine Platform (PR Newswire) Aisera, the world's leading AI-driven service experience platform for automated customer experiences (CX), announced today that its solutions...

PlainID Launches The PlainID Technology Network to Enable Identity Aware Security for Advanced Access Control (PR Newswire) PlainID, The Authorization Company™, the leading provider of authorization and policy-based access control, officially announces its PlainID...

Scottish businesses offered free cyber assessment (BusinessInsider) Scottish Business Resilience Centre offering support to firms of all sizes

Alcatraz AI Achieves Key Security and Privacy Certifications Based on Internationally Recognized ISO Standards (GlobeNewswire News Room) Alcatraz AI now certified adhering to ISO 27001, ISO 27017, and ISO 27018...

LogRhythm Partners with SentinelOne to Accelerate Prevention, Detection and Response for Enterprise Environments (BusinessWire) New integration empowers security teams to identify behavioral anomalies, threats, and prioritize their responses based on accurate intelligence

Stellar Cyber, Netskope Announce XDR-SASE Integration (MSSP Alert) MSSPs can use Stellar Cyber's Open XDR platform and Netskope's SASE capabilities to get insights into customers' cyber risks and threats.

Kaspersky has launched a new online cybersecurity training 'Reverse Engineering 101' (Silicon India) Kaspersky has launched a new online cybersecurity training 'Reverse Engineering 101' - IT professionals will be able to top up their skills, as Kaspersky has added its new ‘Reverse Engineering...

Industry-Leading Digital Intelligence Platform Chooses to Collaborate with Scytale to Automate its Security Compliance (PR Newswire) Scytale, a security compliance automation platform, announces it is working with Cellebrite DI to automate the company's security compliance...

Aryaka Wins Fierce Innovation Award for its Managed SD-WAN and SASE Services (PR Newswire) Aryaka®, the leader in Unified SASE solutions, announced today that it has won a Fierce Innovation Award for its managed SD-WAN and SASE...

BackBox Named Best Network Automation Solution (BackBox Software) BackBox was named Best Network Automation Solution in the Centralized Multi Vendor Network Automation category of the 2022 ‘ASTORS’ Homeland Security Awards.

Fortinet expands global secure SD-WAN presence with new MSSP partnerships (ACE Times) MSSPs continue to invest in Fortinet Secure SD-WAN for its ability to converge networking and security

Google’s partnership with Palo Alto Networks yields enhancements for zero trust security (SiliconANGLE) Google’s partnership with Palo Alto Networks yields enhancements for zero trust security - SiliconANGLE

Silobreaker selected as a named supplier for G-Cloud 13 (Silobreaker) For the sixth consecutive year, Silobreaker’s threat intelligence solution has been selected as a named supplier for listing on UK government’s public sector digital marketplace Silobreaker, a leading security and threat intelligence firm, today announces that it has been selected as a named supplier on Crown Commercial Service's (CCS) G-Cloud framework. G-Cloud 13 is the...

VU evolves the personal data paradigm to provide more control and security using Microsoft Entra Verified ID (PR Newswire) VU Inc., a global cybersecurity company with more than 350 million users worldwide, became one of the first global vendors specialized in...

Malwarebytes strengthens threat prevention capabilities in Nebula platform (IT Security News) Malwarebytes expands Malwarebytes Nebula platform with additional threat prevention capabilities developed specifically for resource constrained organizations to reduce attack surfaces from a simple, easy-to-use cloud-based interface. The company released Cloud Storage Scanning (CSS) to also protect business-critical assets stored in the cloud and prevent the introduction of malware and other threats into digital ecosystems. “In

AllEasy Selects AU10TIX's IDV Technology to Securely and Rapidly Verify Banker's Identity (PR Newswire) AU10TIX, a leading global provider of identity verification (IDV) technology, and AllEasy, Inc. a forerunner in the rapid-growth Filipino...

Anomali Delivers Enhanced Solutions and Capabilities that Enable Organizations to More Accurately and Efficiently Defend Against Cyberattacks (Anomali) New Attack Surface Management Offering Extends Visibility to Strengthen Cyber Resiliency

Symmetry Systems Achieves SOC 2 Type 2 Certification (PR Newswire) Symmetry Systems, the industry's first hybrid cloud data security posture management (DSPM) solution provider, announced it has successfully...

Socure Named a Leader in Inaugural Identity Verification Solutions Report by Independent Research Firm (Business Wire) Socure, the leading provider of digital identity verification and fraud solutions, today announced it has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™:

Axonius Bolsters SaaS Management Offering with New Capabilities (Axonius) Axonius announces the release of two new capabilities within Axonius SaaS Management to help organizations better understand their overall SaaS application risk.

Avertium Advances its Cyber Fusion Capabilities by Adding Microsoft Security Expertise (Avertium) Today, Avertium has announced the addition of Microsoft Security expertise to its team of threat defense professionals.

F5 Expands SaaS-Based Security Portfolio with Launch of F5 Distributed Cloud App Infrastructure Protection (F5) F5 announced the launch of F5 Distributed Cloud App Infrastructure Protection (AIP), a cloud workload protection solution that expands application observability and protection to cloud-native infrastructures.

TransUnion Named a Leader in Identity Verification Solutions by Independent Research Firm (GlobeNewswire News Room) TransUnion (NYSE: TRU) announced today that it has been named as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™ Identity...

Armorblox Announces Significant Enhancements to its NLU-based Data Protection Platform (Armorblox) Support for selective encryption of emails, broad range of user access privileges reduce data blindspots for organizations

Safe Security Launches First Cybersecurity MGA to Underwrite Cyber Insurance Based on Continuous "Inside-Out" Cyber Risk Telemetry (Yahoo Finance) PALO ALTO, Calif., December 15, 2022--Safe Security today launched SafeInside Insurance, the first cybersecurity Managing General Agent (MGA) utilizing API based cyber risk telemetry.

DerScanner 3.12 with a static and dynamic software security analysis correlation module (DerScanner) DerSecur has updated DerScanner, a comprehensive solution for monitoring the security of software and information systems. The new version allows correlating the results of static code analysis (SAST) with the results of dynamic code analysis (DAST).

Fortanix Data Security Manager (DSM) Available to UK Public Sector on G-Cloud 13 (Fortanix) Fortanix Data Security Manager (DSM) is Now approved for the G-Cloud Framework and Available to UK Public Sector on G-Cloud 13.

Beyond Identity and World Wide Technology Announce Strategic Partnership (Beyond Identity) After Deploying Beyond Identity’s Passwordless MFA Internally, WWT Will Resell the Advanced Zero Trust Authentication Solution To Its Customers

Tigera Introduces Calico Security Policy Recommender Improvements and FIPS Compliance to Help Reduce Application Attack Surface (PR Newswire) Tigera, provider of the industry's only active Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) with full-stack observability for...

Solvo Joins AWS ISV Accelerate Program to Enhance Customer Experience (PR Newswire) Solvo, a provider of adaptive cloud infrastructure security solutions, today announced it has joined the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent...

Mark43 achieves premier FedRAMP High “In Process” designation (Business Wire) Mark43, the leading cloud-native public safety software company, today announced that it has achieved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Progra

People

Contrast Security Executives to Help Defend Cyberspace as Active Participants of a Leading Tech Group the Company Co-Founded (Contrast Security) Cybersecurity Tech Accord and its membership of global enterprises continue to partner for a safer and more secure world.

CyberArk Appoints Omer Grossman Global Chief Information Officer (Business Wire) CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR), the global leader in Identity Security, today announced the appointment of Omer Grossman as Global Chief Information Officer

Jacques Boschung Appointed as Head of Kudelski Security (Yahoo Finance) The Kudelski Group (SIX:KUD.S), the world leader in digital security, today announced the appointment of Mr. Jacques Boschung as head of Kudelski Security, the Group's cybersecurit

Semperis Accelerates Adoption of Identity Threat Detection and Response in the Public Sector with Key Appointment (Business Wire) Semperis, a pioneer in identity-driven cyber resilience, today announced the appointment of Jared Vichengrad as Vice President of Public Sector as par

Sectigo Appoints Kevin Weiss as Chief Executive Officer (GlobeNewswire News Room) Former McAfee President Chosen to Drive Next Stage of Growth at Digital Trust Leader Sectigo...

Former TSA Acting Administrator Joins Leidos (WashingtonExec) Leidos has added Darby LaJoye as vice president and strategic account executive for the Department of Homeland Security. LaJoye will be responsible for

Michael Wons and John Valente Join Ridgeback Network Defense as Special Advisors (Business Wire) Ridgeback Network Defense (www.ridgebacknet.com) announces that Michael Wons, former CTO for the State of Illinois, and John Valente, former CISO of 3

Rubrik Appoints John W. Thompson as the Lead Independent Board Director (Rubrik) Former Microsoft Chairman and Former CEO of Symantec expands board role; further strengthens Rubrik’s cybersecurity leadership

Ballistic Ventures Names David Hahn as Inaugural CISO-in-Residence (PR Newswire) Ballistic Ventures, the venture capital firm dedicated exclusively to funding and incubating entrepreneurs and innovations in cybersecurity,...

Plume Appoints Board of Advisors (PR Newswire) Plume®, the personalized communications services pioneer, announced today that it has appointed and formed a new board of advisors comprising...

With Record Growth in 2022, Traceable AI Achieves Significant Milestones and Adds Top Executives to Drive 2023 Expansion (PR Newswire) Traceable, the industry's leading API security and observability company, today announced significant milestones for 2022, including record...