KnowBe4 - Experts & Thought Leaders

Zimperium, a global pioneer in mobile security, is thrilled to announce the appointment of Michael Williams as the new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). With an illustrious career spanning over two decades in cybersecurity marketing, Michael brings a wealth of experience and a proven track record of driving growth and innovation. Michael Williams joins Zimperium from KnowBe4, the world pioneer in security awareness training, where as CMO he helped lead the company through a successful IPO and acquisition. His leadership earned KnowBe4 top rankings in industry reports and most importantly, unparalleled ARR growth. Prior roles of Michael Previously, as CMO Symantec, Michael led the company’s return to pipeline and enterprise growth Previously, as CMO Symantec, Michael led the company’s return to pipeline and enterprise growth. His extensive experience also includes senior leadership roles at Blue Coat Systems and McAfee, where he drove global marketing growth strategies.  At Zimperium, Michael will be responsible for shaping and executing the marketing strategy, expanding the market penetration and thought leadership. His deep understanding of the cybersecurity landscape and his innovative approach to marketing will be invaluable as they continue to lead the industry in mobile threat defence. New heights of success “Michael’s appointment marks a significant milestone for Zimperium,” said Shridhar Mittal, CEO of Zimperium. “His extensive experience and proven success in the cybersecurity sector make him the ideal pioneer to drive our marketing efforts. We are confident that Michael’s vision and leadership will help Zimperium achieve new heights of success.” Michael Williams commented: “I have followed Zimperium for a long time and I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of such a dynamic and innovative team. Cyber attacks on mobile devices and applications are at an all-time high as organised cyber criminals exploit mobile as the primary infiltration point for ransomware, credential theft and account takeover. Zimperium is the global pioneer in mobile security and I’m very proud to be part of their mission to protect enterprises across the world.”

Human Layer Security company Tessian announces that it has raised $65 million in Series C venture capital funding to accelerate its mission of quantifying and preventing human risk in global enterprises, and empowering people to do their best work without security getting in the way. The round is led by March Capital, a venture-growth firm which has previously invested in cybersecurity unicorns such as CrowdStrike and KnowBe4. Existing Tessian investors Accel, Balderton Capital, Latitude and Sequoia Capital also participated in the Series C funding round, along with new investor Schroder Adveq, bringing Tessian’s total funding to-date over $120 million. The deal values Tessian at $500 million. Tessian is pioneering a new approach to cybersecurity and defining a new category of security software called Human Layer Security. Today, 90% of today’s data breaches are caused by some form of human error because, for decades, cybersecurity software has focused on the machine layer of an organisation and not the most vulnerable asset: the people. Behavioural Intelligence Models While organisations have traditionally relied on training programs or restricting people’s access to data and systems to overcome the so-called “people problem” in security, Tessian uses machine learning to stop data breaches and security threats caused by human error - without disrupting employee workflow. It builds Behavioural Intelligence Models, tailored to every employee, by analysing individuals’ communication patterns and behaviours online. Tessian uses the models to automatically detect security threats and prevents them from turning into breaches by notifying the employee of the risk in the moment. Over time, these alerts help employees improve their security behaviours. Tessian uses the models to automatically detect security threats and prevents them from turning into breaches Today, Tessian secures people on email - where they spend over 40% of their time at work - and automatically prevents threats such as phishing, business email compromise, data exfiltration and accidental data loss. After deploying Tessian, enterprises see, on average, an 84% reduction in data exfiltration and phishing simulation click-through rates drop to less than 1%. Human-activated security risks The need for greater visibility of human-activated security risks, and mitigations of these threats, was brought into sharp focus last year following the shift to remote work. Research revealed that employees were less likely to follow safe data practices when working from home, while the number of phishing attacks doubled in 2020. In fact, in the last year, Tessian tripled its Fortune 500-level customer base as enterprises required a solution that could protect them against human layer security threats. Tessian now has approximately 350 global customers across the legal, financial services, healthcare and technology sectors including Affirm, Investec and RealPage. One customer, Tim Fitzgerald, CISO at Arm said, “The security of our operations and data is paramount to the success of Arm, and we’re committed to empowering our people to make sound security decisions while doing their jobs effectively. The concept of human layer security is becoming a critical part of doing business today.” “Tessian enables us to reduce risk across the organisation by providing valuable tools and knowledge to not only stop threats like advanced phishing attacks and accidental data loss, but also continually improve the security behaviours of our teams as the threat landscape evolves.” Data loss prevention solutions With the new funding, Tessian will expand its platform’s capabilities, helping companies replace their secure email gateways and legacy data loss prevention solutions, and will soon expand beyond email to secure other interfaces like messaging, web and collaboration platforms. Tessian will also use the funding to triple its rapidly growing employee base, with a particular focus on growing its sales team in North America. Human activity, whether inadvertent or malicious, is the leading cause of data breaches" Jamie Montgomery, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at March Capital said, “Human activity, whether inadvertent or malicious, is the leading cause of data breaches. In Tessian, we found a best-in-class solution that automatically stops threats in real-time, without disrupting the normal flow of business. It is rare to hear such overwhelmingly positive feedback from CISOs and business users alike. We came to the same conclusion; Tessian is rapidly emerging as the leader in human layer security for the enterprise.” Series C Tim Sadler, Co-Founder and CEO at Tessian said, “In the same way we have firewalls to secure networks, and endpoint detection and response platforms to secure devices, enterprises now need advanced security technology to secure their people.” “People make 35,000 decisions every day; it just takes one wrong decision or one instance of human error for an employee to cause a catastrophic security breach. We’re tackling the biggest threat to enterprise security, and are thrilled to partner with March Capital on our Series C and have them join our mission to secure the human layer.” Tessian’s funding announcement closely follows the news that Ramin Sayer, CEO and President of Sumo Logic, has joined Tessian’s Board of Directors.

KnowBe4, a provider of security awareness training (SAT) and simulated phishing platform, has announced the acquisition of CLTRe - pronounced “Culture”- a Norwegian company focused on helping organisations assess, build, maintain and measure a strong security posture. CLTRe will continue to operate as an independent subsidiary of KnowBe4, and service customers globally. CLTRe’s Toolkit and Security Culture Framework will be available to all KnowBe4 customers later this year. Cybersecurity and cyber threat mitigation The finance industry demonstrated an overall healthy improvement in culture from 2017 According to the 2018 Cybersecurity Culture Report, 95 percent of organisations see a gap between their current and desired organisational cybersecurity culture. With 94 percent of malware being delivered via email (2019 DBIR), it’s clear that working with users to minimise cyber risk and improve security culture is key. The 2018 Security Culture Report shows the value of being able to measure culture, helping organisations to demonstrate the effectiveness of their organisational security controls, as required by GDPR, CCPA and other regulations. Interestingly, the finance industry demonstrated an overall healthy improvement in culture from 2017 while the real estate industry showed a decline. CLTRe Toolkit and Security Culture Framework CLTRe created the CLTRe Toolkit and the Security Culture Framework, which work in tandem to help organisations gather evidence about their current security culture and how it changes over time. The acquisition of CLTRe is advantageous for both KnowBe4 and CLTRe clients; KnowBe4 users will gain access to a research-driven measurement platform to show how their security culture program matures over time. And CLTRe clients will be introduced to the industry’s most progressive and easiest-to-use SAT and simulated phishing platform to help educate users and change their behaviour. CLTRe measures the seven dimensions of security culture: behaviour, responsibilities, cognition, norms, compliance, communication and attitudes. Quotes by industry experts: Stu Sjouwerman, CEO, KnowBe4 “Today’s announcement brings KnowBe4 very valuable tools to help our customers measure what matters – their security culture – so they can make decisions about how to improve. We’re excited to welcome Kai and the CLTRe team to the KnowBe4 family and to enhance our European presence while supporting more global customers.” Kai Roer, CEO, CLTRe “KnowBe4 is a leader in innovation and has a wonderful track record for growing quickly but with a very specific focus on improving security at the human-level. This is a natural fit for our evidence-based analytics and measurement tools, as KnowBe4 customers will now be able to measure their security cultures, benchmark against their industry sectors, and pinpoint exactly what kind of security culture they have. With KnowBe4 and CLTRe, organisations can gain true insight into their security culture, improve their security with pinpoint accuracy, report their progress to their board of directors, and educate their users to make smarter security decisions.” Perry Carpenter, Chief Evangelist & Strategy Officer, KnowBe4 “From my former life as a Gartner analyst, I have a strong appreciation for evidence over opinion, which is what CLTRe gives to its clients in the form of a data-driven examination of their security culture. To change user behaviour and address awareness, we have to understand and change security culture. CLTRe gives organisations the tools to understand where they are today so they can get to where they want to go tomorrow.” Espen Otterstad, CISO at Abax (CLTRe customer) “Our work with CLTRe has been important to helping us gauge the maturity of our security culture over time. Now that CLTRe is part of KnowBe4, we have a very real way to advance the maturity of our program and test the knowledge of our user’s understanding via KnowBe4’s fresh content, engaging trainings and simulated phishing tests. The combination of CLTRe and KnowBe4 means that we can improve security within our organisation through training and phishing tests and manage our security culture program while proving ROI.”