Content by Michael Novinson

Devo Raises $100M on $2B Valuation to Pursue Additional M&A

Michael Novinson  •  June 3, 2022

Devo has closed its Series F round and notched a $2 billion valuation to incorporate more capabilities into its SOC via acquisition. The company plans to use the $100 million to buy companies that will provide customers with additional intelligence on top of Devo's data for specific use cases.

Okta CEO: Hack Didn't Have Quantifiable Impact on Business

Michael Novinson  •  June 2, 2022

Okta's competitive win rates and renewal rates weren't measurably affected by the Lapsus$ cyberattack that came to light in March. The company looked through hundreds of opportunities with customers and prospects to see if any of the potential sales had been delayed or canceled due to the breach.

Lookout Buys SaferPass to Help Carriers Manage Passwords

Michael Novinson  •  June 2, 2022

Lookout has bought password management provider SaferPass to provide carriers distributing the company's consumer app with more capabilities in a single place. Lookout wants to take SaferPass's technology beyond its existing base of consumer and SMB customers and bring it to large enterprises.

Cybereason Lays Off 10% of Staff Months After Raising $325M

Michael Novinson  •  June 1, 2022

Late-stage security startup Cybereason has laid off 10% of its employees in response to deteriorating market conditions less than a year after raising $325 million. The news was first reported by Israeli publications Calcalist and Globes, which both said roughly 100 employees had been let go.

ReliaQuest Buys Threat Intel Firm Digital Shadows for $160M

Michael Novinson  •  June 1, 2022

ReliaQuest has agreed to buy Digital Shadows for $160 million to infuse its security operations platform with threat intelligence, attack surface management, and dark web monitoring. The deal will give clients more visibility and context around threats facing their networks, endpoints and cloud.

Microsoft CIEM, Decentralized Identity Tools Secure Access

Michael Novinson  •  May 31, 2022

Microsoft plans to roll out new decentralized identity and cloud infrastructure entitlement management products to extend secure access from users to workloads and apps. Microsoft Entra Permissions Management will be available on a stand-alone basis in July, and Verified ID will debut in August.

Broadcom Beefs Up Security Business With $61B VMware Buy

Michael Novinson  •  May 26, 2022

Broadcom has agreed to buy cloud and virtualization giant VMware for $61 billion, bringing together the $1.6 billion Symantec and $1 billion VMware security teams. Broadcom will incorporate its existing security offerings into the VMware portfolio and bring them to market under the VMware brand.

Lacework Announces Layoffs 6 Months After Raising $1.3B

Michael Novinson  •  May 26, 2022

Cybersecurity startup Lacework has announced layoffs - affecting 20% of its employees, according to one report - to strengthen its balance sheet, just six months after raising $1.3 billion. The company says it restructured its business in response to a large shift in the public and private markets.

Cribl Raises $150M to Incubate New Observability Features

Michael Novinson  •  May 25, 2022

Cribl has raised $150 million to drive the development of new features such as hosted versions of the company's technology. The company will build out separate tools for each piece of the observability process rather than forcing customers to purchase a bundle with features they don't care about.

WhiteSource, Renamed Mend, Takes on Remediating Code Issues

Michael Novinson  •  May 25, 2022

WhiteSource has renamed itself Mend as the company pushes beyond software composition analysis to become a broad application security platform with automated remediation. The name WhiteSource didn't have any negative connotations when the company was founded, but some people today find it offensive.

Semperis Raises $200M to Extend AI, ML to Identity Security

Michael Novinson  •  May 24, 2022

Semperis has closed a Series C funding round to expand geographically and enhance identity protection and threat mitigation with AI and ML capabilities. The AD security provider plans to use the $200 million to expand into safeguarding additional cloud applications and cloud identity providers.

How Broadcom Acquiring VMware Would Shake Up Cybersecurity

Michael Novinson  •  May 23, 2022

The tumultuous experience of Symantec under Broadcom's control presents a cautionary tale for CISOs currently using VMware's security technology. Symantec saw massive customer and employee attrition following deal close, and the company's technology doesn't fare as well in reviews by Gartner.

Pathlock-Appsian Deal Combines App Governance, ERP Security

Michael Novinson  •  May 20, 2022

Pathlock has merged with Appsian to form a 500-person vendor that secures users and data across SAP and Oracle's ERP apps. Bringing Pathlock, Appsian and Security Weaver together will allow the firm to take a larger bite out of the $110 billion market focused on compliance testing for business apps.

Palo Alto CEO: Vendor Consolidation Is Fueling Our Growth

Michael Novinson  •  May 19, 2022

Palo Alto Networks' product portfolio is paying dividends as customers look to reduce their vendor footprint, says CEO Nikesh Arora. He says despite pressures in the global economy, enterprises aren't currently stressing about their IT budgets.

CISA: Majority of US Government Will Get EDR Later in 2022

Michael Novinson  •  May 17, 2022

EDR deployments will be underway at more than half of federal civilian agencies by the end of September, according to federal officials. CISA is currently in the process of deploying EDR across 26 federal civilian agencies and expects to have work underway at 53 agencies by Sept. 30, 2022.