The threat of cyberattacks is very real: around the world: an attack takes place every 11 seconds, and companies face devastating consequences if their systems are breached.
That’s why every organisation recognises the need to protect against attack, prepare for the day it happens, and mitigate the effects.
But the threats are so pervasive, and the security landscape so complex, that it’s really hard for chief information officers (CIOs) and chief information security officers (CISOs) to ensure they have the best security posture.
Just consider the number of possible point solutions out there: it’s estimated than no fewer than 3 000 vendors have portfolios of security products, covering every possible aspect of the IT system, from the edge to the network, hugely complicating the landscape for cybersecurity leaders.
“The reality is that there are simply too many tools out there,” says Jason Oehley, business leader at Arctic Wolf South Africa. “Add to this the limited number of skills available – particularly in South Africa – and you can see just how challenging cybersecurity is.”
Johnny Ellis, EMEA channel director at Arctic Wolf.
Arctic Wolf changes the way companies look at security by delivering a strategic service rather than point-based tools, explains Johnny Ellis, EMEA channel director at Arctic Wolf.
“The threat is real, and organisations recognise that. So we are starting to see security taken a lot more seriously. In fact, we are seeing legislation in all geographies mandating that data is secured.”
It’s not just legislation that’s making companies more aware of their duty of care to their data. Many cyberinsurance companies are now insisting that adequate steps are taken to safeguard data.
The Arctic Wolf value proposition
Arctic Wolf Networks provides 24×7 security operations to detect and respond to cyber threats. The company monitors on-premises computers, networks and cloud-based information assets for malicious activity such as cybercrime, ransomware and attacks.
Solutions include: Network Inspection; Log Analysis and Search; Threat Detection; Cloud Security; 24×7 Risk Monitoring; and On-Demand Reporting.
The Arctic Wolf Security Operations Solution provides intrusion prevention by quickly identifying vulnerabilities in existing systems, continuously scanning systems and proactively hunting threats; and prioritising remediation based on potential business impacts.
To quantify the risk, Ellis explains that Arctic Wolf even provides a tool that helps the end user organisation to understand the real cost of a breach. “IT generally has access to reports and penetration testing that covers a big portion of the risk – but it’s the part that’s not covered that threat actors will exploit, and that’s what we help customers to understand and to quantify.”
The company’s technology stack capabilities include predictable pricing, incident response and remediation capabilities, and monitoring of on-premise and cloud assets.
“The Arctic Wolf approach is about delivering a service that builds efficiency into an organisation’s security spend,” Ellis explains. “We help our customers on their cybersecurity journey, not by ripping and replacing what they already have, but by helping them to build better protection.
“We do this by giving them broader visibility of the attack surface, and helping them to understand outcomes. And we do the heavy lifting for them.”
With its concierge delivery model, Arctic Wolf helps customers to identify the real risks and protect against them. In the face of a hugely complex cybersecurity landscape, Ellis points out that many organisations don’t know where to start on the journey to improving their security posture, or what to use.
The concierge white-glove deployment model offers 24/7 incident support by security operations experts. “Our concierge team helps customers to define a strategy, then build and plan for a consistent ongoing security posture over time,” Ellis explains.
Importantly, Arctic Wolf’s end-to-end service is scalable across organisations of all sizes, from SMEs to large corporates.
“For most organisations, the skills shortage – indeed, the people shortage – is very real,” Ellis says. “Even in organisations where there are dedicated security resources, there is generally so much noise from the tools that are supposed to be helping them, that they spend time dealing with noise rather than business outcomes.
“Not only do organisations have to deploy resources to deal with the noise, they also risk a deluge of false positives and the resulting alert fatigue, where people start to ignore potentially dangerous issues,” Ellis points out.
“That is where we are able to add real value: we drive business outcomes with your existing tools or our own – we are completely agnostic about integration.”
An important point that Oehley makes is that Arctic Wolf customers are unlimited in the amount of data that is processed.
“Many other providers base their pricing on the amount of data,” he says. “This means that only specific data will be included – but to have a good security posture, you need to have broad visibility to build context and ensure complete understanding.”
How does Arctic Wolf ensure it can deliver these strategic business outcomes to customers?
“One of our key strengths is more than 700 security engineers, with multiple years of experience and all the necessary cybersecurity certifications,” Ellis says. “A big part of our go-to-market value proposition is unlimited, agnostic, quality people.”
The company also employs artificial intelligence (AI) to help drive the right security outcomes for customers. “We are cognisant of the fact that there has to be a balance of people and AI,” Ellis adds. “The AI is there to make automation and detection more intelligent; the human interaction builds business context.”
Ongoing learning
The best tools in the world won’t keep an organisation safe if staff practice unsafe computing, or fail to use solutions effectively.
“One of our top offerings is a learning and teaching service,” Ellis says. “One of the biggest challenges for security is that so often it is tactical rather than about building security culture and discipline.
“Putting your staff through a training course once a year is better than nothing, but it’s not going to drive positive reinforcement or keep people up to date with what is happening in the moment.
“That’s why at Arctic Wolf, our concierge team works with organisations to guide all its users about best cybersecurity practices – all the time.”
Go-to-market
The Arctic Wolf platform and solution is available through the channel as the company’s only go-to-market route.
“Our unique value-add is that we can take partners and help them build a security operations business at very little cost. All we need from them is an opportunity to engage with their existing customers, and we can help them create a go-to-market strategy.”
The sweetspot for the Arctic Wolf service is typically customers between 100 and 2 000 users, because these small to medium size enterprises can’t afford to build security operations inhouse from a resource and tooling perspective.
The company Wolf can also handle very large customers, but typically larger enterprises like big banks have built the capability inhouse.
“The key for us is that we need partners that are focused on what we do and what they do,” says Oehley. “The best partner is not necessarily the biggest one, but the one we can build a business with. It is about ensuring we are providing a jointly beneficial value proposition to our customers.”
Arctic Wolf provides marketing and engineering services, and helps partners to identify and seize market opportunities.
Partners benefit from a clean deal registration protocol that effectively eliminates conflicts of interest, and can be sure that the vendor will never attempt to take over a customer.
The company has a global presence. Its South Africa office was set up in September 2022.
To learn more about Arctic Wolf and its partnering model, contact Debbie Hunter – Debbie.hunter@arcticwolf.com