Organisations are increasingly investing in cybersecurity measures as it remains at the forefront of businesses as they migrate to virtual environments. According to studies conducted by Gartner, the cybersecurity market is forecasted to reach 186 Billion Dollars by 2024. Moreover, if cybersecurity was already becoming a concern for businesses previously, the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic has brought about a seismic shift from companies functioning conventionally to achieving digital transformations. This, in tandem with the implementation of various emerging technologies followed by enterprise-wide transformation, has left digital systems increasingly vulnerable to financially-motivated hackers. As we embrace the post-Covid era, cybersecurity strategies need to be modified accordingly. Another major factor that demands the increase in cybersecurity attacks be appropriately addressed is the global and geopolitical events occurring across the world. Like the Ukrainian/Russian war, cybersecurity is being severely impacted by the two countries trying to cause security breaches with a slew of cyberattacks.
Cybrella, headquartered in Boston, is perfectly poised to safeguard an organisation from cyber threats with its highly-advanced techniques and proven best practices. Cybrella is not a generic cybersecurity solutions provider but rather an experienced cyber protection solutions provider that caters to the vast yet niche segment of SMBs. This is a vast opportunity, one that Cybrella is capitalising on and maintains one of the leadership positions. “Cybrella is positioned to stand and support the SMBs because these companies have usually forgotten about cybersecurity,” explains Alon Mantsur, CEO of Cybrella and a veteran in the cybersecurity space. He explains that while every facet of the digital organisation possesses cybersecurity implications, large-scale enterprises are better positioned to meet their cybersecurity requirements than SMBs. SMBs provide most of the services larger payroll companies offer, many of which are centred around handling sensitive data. These might only be hundreds of companies with less than 100 employees, implying it’s too tiny a vertical for the regulator to create, monitor, and enforce standards like the larger FinTech enterprises. This is where Cybrella comes to the fore. The company treats them with the same importance and dedication an enterprise company receives and develops customised and scalable cybersecurity solutions based on the market-lead best practices.
Creating a Safer Environment with Two Key Services
Cybrella stands apart from other IT services companies. The company specialises and focuses on two primary services: CISO as a Service and Application Security as a Service. When clients looking for CISO As a Service are on-boarded, they receive cybersecurity expertise as part of the package, a unique offering. The AppSec as a Service also stands out because it is challenging to find expertise in development and cybersecurity through one company. Cybrella’s security experts are well versed in the developer’s language. Alon explains, “When working with SMBs that are lean with their budgets, they often reverse engineer their cybersecurity, waiting until there is a problem versus mitigating the risk ahead of an incident. This approach can end up causing companies to lose time and money and compliance issues as well. It is more cost-effective to put a security program in place upfront that is day-to-day than wait until an incident occurs down the road.” Cybrella can work with the client from the beginning to customise and scale a program to its needs as it changes. He adds, “In reality, today and moving forward, no matter what size a company is, it is not a question of IF a security incident will happen, but WHEN, and our job is to make sure that our customers are at the level of readiness to handle any event as quickly as possible and without damage.”
Taking the Road Less Travelled
While Cybrella ensures customer satisfaction, it is not uncommon knowledge that each customer has unique requirements. In fact, different countries have various regulations, standards, and terminologies. Alon specifically recognised that the U.S. SMB market was unmanaged in cybersecurity and set out to change that. Before embarking upon this journey to establish Cybrella, Alon had founded the largest cybersecurity service company in Israel, 2BSecure, which was acquired by Matrix IT (MTRX.TA). He developed specific services and methodologies for enterprises across all industry sectors in Israel and Europe. But despite possessing in-depth industry knowledge and having incepted a successful company in Israel, Alon noticed that the US market was different. He observed that the US market is enormous and not segmented like Israel and Europe.
Also, the sales process is entirely different in the US. In Israel and Europe, the process is based on personal engagement and it in some way is contingent on the chemistry between the solution provider and the customer. However, in the United States, the process is more automated where one can connect via email communications, and a company can engage a vendor before even meeting them in person. Having gained a complete understanding of the market and the significant differences, the team of experts at Cybrella combined a personal touch with automated methods, which works well when working with SMBs, so it’s a fit for both Cybrella and the client.
“Part of our marketing strategy is to contract with partners where we can complement their services with our cybersecurity expertise and services. This allows partners who primarily offer the traditional IT Services to offer added services to their customers that they usually would not have been able to provide. And it works similarly for us. When Cybrella manages security for a customer, and we need to deploy tools to manage the cloud, for example, we will often subcontract with one of our partners to bring their expertise to the table,” reveals Alon. He adds, “Despite the challenges of establishing Cybrella in a foreign U.S. market and at a time when the pandemic changed how everyone was working, we have grown 25 percent each year. Part of this success during such unprecedented times was due to our working with partners as part of our strategy.”
Three Key Pillars
Despite being a relatively recent entrant in the US market, Cybrella strongly believes in three factors that make them stand apart from other solution providers. It is part of the company’s value proposition to offer a personal touch with how business is conducted with customers. The team continually strives to organise in-person meetings with the customer, meet at least once per quarter and during status meetings, and have either one of the VPs participating in these meetings or Alon himself preside over the meetings. And because Cybrella has a dedicated CISO and security expert for each of its customers, the company can keep a pulse on the customer’s level of satisfaction.
Constant innovation and operating under total transparency are the other two key factors. Alon says, “We are constantly innovating. Our latest project is the development of a customer dashboard that will allow them to monitor the progress of their cybersecurity program, a first in the US market. For example, they can see what was a risk two months ago, is no longer one today.”
Mapping Out Future Plans
The US as a market holds massive potential with a broad range of close to 30 Million SMBs peppered across the country. While 80 per cent of SMBs might be operating with less than five employees, around 20 per cent are made of 5-100 employees across various industry verticals. Cybrella envisions continuing to tap into this market. “It would be a big deal for us if we can work with 1 out of 100 in each sector.”
In conjunction with this, the company is targeting payroll companies with the vision of helping them implement cybersecurity as if they were a bank. Alon concludes the conversation with the rest of his plans for the company, “We are also targeting small municipalities where we build and develop the methodology for properly securing their IT needs and SMART city tech, which has specific security needs such as ICS, OT, wi-fi for water meters, and lighting features. And as mentioned earlier, we are planning to launch our new customer dashboard by 2023. This year, our focus is to take that growth to the next level by doubling our revenue and team.”
For More Info: https://www.cybrella.io/