What is it about Devo that enticed you to join the company?
If you look at my history, you’ll quickly realise I am passionate about two things: data and cybersecurity. One other passion that is not widely known is that I am a bit of a graph-processing fanatic. Solving problems in the modern security landscape isn’t just about collecting loads of data — which Devo does well — but how you can turn that data into actionable intelligence.
When I saw Devo’s graph-processing capabilities, I was hooked! For an adversary to pivot through your network, they need to communicate, and the graph processing in the Devo Platform lights up adversaries in a way I had never seen before.
What market or external factors are contributing to Devo’s success?
There are a lot of people in the security industry with varying skill levels. Suppose you’re a security analyst looking to upgrade your skills to improve your organisation’s ability to meet its mission. In that case, you’re probably going to spend more time on direct security-related skills such as malware analysis, threat hunting, detection engineering, or threat intelligence — not managing infrastructure. Having a cloud-based, next-gen SIEM, such as Devo Security Operations, means that you can spend more time improving your tradecraft and less time watering and feeding your legacy SIEM.
What are some of the challenges that SOCs face today that can be addressed or mitigated using Devo?
Organizations face two big problems: TTP and the “agent nightmare.”
The market for new cybersecurity talent is as hot as it’s ever been. Security operations centers (SOC) are hiring like crazy. The challenge with such rapid hiring is the TTP of new employees. Not the TTP that you’re thinking of :). I’m not talking about tactics, techniques and procedures. I’m talking about “time to proficiency.” In other words, how long it takes a new cybersecurity hire to become proficient in their daily tasks.
What impacts the ramp-up time? A new employee must first learn the product(s) being used and then develop a clear understanding of how the organization implements them. This process naturally extends the employee’s TTP. To alleviate this pain, we need to design products that deliver a fast TTP. Devo uses LINQ, a form of SQL, as its query language. That’s the standard for many people working in varying cybersecurity roles. LINQ makes it easier and quicker to understand how Devo products work.
Now, let me explain what I call “the agent nightmare.” The pace of innovation in and outside of the cybersecurity market is relentless, and organizations are eager to benefit from what new technologies deliver. But how do you realize results? You deploy an agent, and that’s where the bottleneck starts.
Long, complicated deployments and playing the blame game in operations meetings are a familiar story for many of us who work in cybersecurity. So, how do you solve this problem? The solution is not to eliminate all agents but, rather, to reduce the reliance on deploying an agent to achieve the desired results.
I was pleasantly surprised by Devo and its bring-what-you-have approach to agents. Unlike many cybersecurity vendors, Devo doesn’t require the rip-and-replace method. We can ingest data from all types of agents, including those most organizations already have deployed. This means your team can rapidly get up and running with Devo in a short time. Our customers don’t have the issues common in our industry where cybersecurity teams are forced to abandon familiar agents in favor of new ones they haven’t used before in order to use a new solution they’ve just purchased.
How can people contact you to learn more about Devo?
Devo is open for business in the APAC region from our office in Australia. One thing I intend to do is deliver frequent webinars that are time-zone friendly for prospects in the region. That way, people who want to learn about the Devo Platform don’t have to wake up while the birds are still sleeping to catch a midnight webinar.
You can also reach me on LinkedIn. I’m eager to speak to as many people as possible to bring the Devo story to Australia and New Zealand!
