LightCyber plots European takeover

Vendor aims to fight dark side of security as it launches sales teams in UK and Germany

Security start-up LightCyber has launched in the UK and Germany to combat "flaws" in legacy security software.

The vendor, which has bases in California and Ramat Gan, Israel, was founded four years ago but came out of stealth mode and started trading in January 2015.

It launched its sales teams in Germany and the UK a couple of weeks ago with offices in Munich and Kent. Its chief marketing officer Jason Matlof said its product, Magna, is long overdue in the industry.

He said: "For the last 20 years, in the security market, 75 per cent of the $20bn being spent is all about trying to stop the initial intrusion. There is this false hope that we can have comprehensive security and stop 100 per cent of attackers.

"There is an entire six months of attack lifecycles that goes on without any visibility because there is no mature infrastructure to address it during the active phase of attack. Our platform has been built to address these out-of-control data breach problems that have been escalating in the last two years."

LightCyber is in the process of building its channel in the UK, with the vendor's country manager for the UK, Ruby Khaira, claiming that talks are currently underway with a distributor and a number of resellers.

"I think, for resellers, the opportunity is there to take something unique to the market, beyond what they have traditionally been selling," he said. "We are 100 per cent channel orientated, and we are looking for around six to eight resellers in the UK as soon as possible."

Khaira said the vendor is looking for resellers as well as MSPs who can offer LightCyber as a service.

He added: "There is value in working with some of the top tier integrators, but sometimes it takes a period of time to bring those guys on board. We are finding there is a lot of interest from more boutique integrators or resellers who are perhaps more nimble and more experienced with particular parts of the market."

LightCyber has a global channel programme which will be rolled out in the UK once pending agreements with disties and resellers are finalised. Matlof stressed the programme is "pretty rare" for a start-up because it contains a lot of online training infrastructure, including four levels of certification.

Matlof said that future plans for the business include expanding into APAC to meet the growing demand for breach-detection technologies.

"Gartner forecasts that by 2020 the security market will be worth $28bn, and there will be a shift of 60 per cent expenditure from prevention to detection technologies," he added.

"This represents a huge market opportunity for the channel. If Gartner are even close to being right, say the shift is 30 per cent, then that is a shift of $10bn towards behavioural threat detection. So it is a massive opportunity for resellers, both to solve real customer problems and to make a lot of money."