Varonis Featured in First CISO-Authored Report on User Behavior Analytics

NEW YORK, Jan. 04, 2017 -- As cyberattackers easily circumvent perimeter defenses and insider threats increase, today’s chief information security officers (CISOs) are embracing detective controls driven by user behavior analytics (UBA), according to the first CISO-authored report on UBA. Varonis Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:VRNS), a leading provider of software solutions that protect data from insider threats and cyberattacks, is included in the new UBA buyers’ guide by Security Current.

“CISOs Investigate: User Behavior Analytics” is the first of an ongoing series written from the perspectives of CISOs spanning industry verticals. James Beeson, CISO and IT Risk Leader, GE Capital Americas, authored a section within the report on the history of UBA and offered this assessment:

“Historically, security investments have been allocated mostly to preventative technologies. In theory, this makes sense, but in reality, these solutions no longer adequately withstand the attacker’s ability to compromise companies. The proverbial perimeter has vanished and now the account is essentially the perimeter. This is not to say that perimeter defenses are not needed. This means that security leaders have realized that they cannot stop it all and need to shift some investment dollars from prevention to detection. Ultimately there should be a formidable process to monitor, detect, and contain threats and that process should be centered on accounts, computers, and sensitive data.”

Greg Schaffer, FirstBank CISO and lead author of the report, said, “User behavior analytics is a growing technology that helps organizations detect malicious activity, insider threats and external hackers, which may otherwise go unnoticed by traditional technologies like SIEM. ‘CISOs Investigate: UBA’ discusses real-world use cases across industries, which security executives can use when selecting vendors. We are pleased to include companies like Varonis, which responded to RFIs built by executives who are using UBA technology.”

Unlike many UBA and SIEM solutions, Varonis is not dependent on external data sources. The Varonis Metadata Framework platform, paired with Varonis DatAlert Suite, allows customers to capture a holistic analytical view across an organization’s unstructured data, which differentiates Varonis from other providers.

Beeson concluded his contribution in the report by noting: “UBA will likely be one of the more valuable additions to the technology stack. Security leaders can learn a lot and potentially apply technologies and processes from other functional areas . . . It is now time for teams to look to UBA as a means to better predict, detect, and contain malicious threats. Start small, build a process, and iterate based on greatest risk to the business.”

David Gibson, Vice President of Strategy and Market Development at Varonis, said, “We’re pleased that the market has begun to shine a brighter light on detection and user behavior analytics. This functionality is an important part of a greater offering that Varonis provides to its customers. Major breaches and threats increasingly come from inside the perimeter, either by hackers who have taken over the accounts or systems of an insider, or by malicious internal actors. It’s more important than ever for businesses to take an inside-out approach to security.”

The report is available for download at http://info.varonis.com/hubfs/docs/research_reports/SC_UBA_Report16_Final.pdf.

Additional Resources

• For more information on Varonis' solution portfolio, please visit www.varonis.com
• Visit our blog, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.

About Varonis

Varonis is a leading provider of software solutions that protect data from insider threats and cyberattacks. Through an innovative software platform, Varonis allows organizations to analyze, secure, manage, and migrate their volumes of unstructured data. Varonis specializes in file and email systems that store valuable spreadsheets, word processing documents, presentations, audio and video files, emails, and text. This rapidly growing data often contains an enterprise's financial information, product plans, strategic initiatives, intellectual property, and confidential employee, customer or patient records. IT and business personnel deploy Varonis software for a variety of use cases, including data security, governance and compliance, user behavior analytics, archiving, search, and file synchronization and sharing. With offices and partners worldwide, Varonis had approximately 5,000 customers as of September 30, 2016, spanning leading firms in financial services, healthcare, public, industrial, insurance, energy and utilities, media and entertainment, consumer and retail, technology and education sectors.

About CISOs Investigate

Authored by leading Chief Information Security Officers, CISOs Investigate is an ongoing series that offers first-hand insights to security leaders as they make business-driven technology decisions.

About Security Current

Security Current improves the way security, privacy and risk executives share information and collaborate to protect their organizations and their data. Its CISO-authored and peer driven proprietary content and events provide insight, actionable advice and analysis giving executives the latest information to make knowledgeable decisions.

News Media Contact: 
Jennifer LuPiba
614-338-9889
[email protected]