Cyber-insurance will stoke channel demand - FireEye

Exec says the vendor is already engaged with some large insurance and broker firms

Resellers stand to benefit from insurance firms setting cyber-security standards, Steve Pataky, vice president of worldwide channels and alliances at FireEye, told CRN UK sister publication Channelnomics at the vendor's Cyber Defense Summit this week.

During the conference's opening keynote, Kevin Mandia, president of FireEye, discussed growing interest in having insurance organisations set watermarks for security in an effort to come closer to a due standard of care.

In a subsequent interview with Channelnomics, Pataky said this idea is "very realistic", explaining most large enterprises have worked with cyber-insurance. In addition, FireEye is already engaged with some large insurance and broker companies, according to Pataky.

He said that cyber-insurance growth would benefit channel partners by creating a "huge" demand for services like compromise assessment or risk assessment. Demand may start with simple malware testing, but with cyber threats being inevitable, demand will accelerate to full compromise assessments, Pataky added.

"It adds a huge opportunity for our channel partners to fulfill that tight demand out there to increase the visibility into the risk profile," Pataky told Channelnomics. "It creates a huge demand for those types of service. It puts it front and center, and as a partnering company - one that believes in enabling our partners to deliver those types of services - that's where the opportunity comes together."

When asked if the introduction of insurance companies into the cyber-security space will add a burdensome layer for partners, Pataky said channel partners are very good at learning how to work inside of ecosystems and therefore should adjust quickly.

"They'll adapt very well at that and find ways to deliver the services that enterprises need [and] also support the insurance entities as well," he explained.

Pataky noted FireEye has a team working on creating content, education and enablement for partners around what role they play in this and what the insurance ecosystem is like.

And although he thinks cyber-insurance is definitely a best practice, he said it will not be security's silver bullet.

"This is not a traditional insurance area where [insurance companies] have all the actuary tables to know exactly what's going to happen, so I think assessing the risk is one of the biggest challenges for the cyber-insurance companies so they can offer the right policies," Pataky explained.

In addition, further partner opportunities are present in FireEye's partnership with Visa, which led to the 13 October announcement of cyber intelligence service Visa Threat Intelligence, which is powered by FireEye, Pataky added. He said the partnership aims to bring solution providers opportunity to determine how a customer needs to evolve their security program and what additional levels of protection or security infrastructure they require.

"Products need to be brought in there. Services need to be rendered. Networks need to be set up. All of that IT and security work will then fall onto our channel partners," Pataky said.