Proof that the cyber security industry is an overlooked dark horse, full of opportunities.
Too bad it gets overshadowed by AI, cryptocurrency, VR/AR. I guess it's unsexy and not necessarily new. But there's a lot of money in it.
Too bad it gets overshadowed by AI, cryptocurrency, VR/AR. I guess it's unsexy and not necessarily new. But there's a lot of money in it.
There are two big things going for it though:
1. There's an adversarial relationship that drives up demand for products.
2. It's stupidly complex, so there's a lot of potential value add in anything that can simplify the problem.
The main thing going against the cyber security industry is that while it's sexy to subject matter experts, it's not really sexy to boardrooms, Silicon Valley tech startups included, many who see it as a cost center and something that slows down product development and thus do the minimum necessary to look secure. Speaking from anecdotal evidence.
In the context of big companies, Krebs on Security had a great article in the wake of the Equifax breach which pointed out that there are very few CISO's (or equivalent) who report to the CTO or CEO. For the most part they report to the CFO, to the head of IT, or to the head of legal.
We focus on helping an organization make security an enabler. Yet even those customers who get it - really only care when there's a breach, or if someone's bacon has seriously been saved.
Suffice it to say, I find the industry troubling, to say the least.
Hell, why do you think Splunk has 1 billion dollars to burn?
Agreed. If you boil it all down, the only things that are "profit centers" are either Marketing or Sales. Everything else is a cost.
When a company I work for begins putting its employees into boxes like that, I look for a quick exit. It's only a matter of time before the C-level staff start reducing those "cost-centers" to a few overworked, underpaid staff.
There's a ton of room in this space for real innovation. Instead, as mentioned, we get substitutes for innovation, like "AI".
If infosec weren't a dark horse, we wouldn't be miserably to protect against breaches. Clearly there is a need not being addressed.