Security vendor TrapX targets UK Cisco and Palo Alto Networks partners

TrapX on the hunt for UK partners as it shifts from direct to channel model

Security vendor TrapX is targeting Cisco and Palo Alto Networks partners with its deception technology as it looks to increase its presence in the UK channel.

Founded in 2010 in California, TrapX has between 10 and 20 UK partners but has kick-started its UK channel push this year, having previously operated with a direct model.

Recently appointed EMEA channel boss Dan Sibille told CRN that the vendor is now in the process of transitioning to a 100 per cent channel model globally, having already bumped its channel business up to around 70 per cent of all business.

Sibille explained that TrapX has spent substantial resources on formal integrations with vendors including Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, McAfee and ForeScout, which he claims creates an opportunity for these vendors' partners to add the TrapX solution into offerings they are already providing.

"A lot of customers already have a lot of solutions and applications - on average more than 20 that they're trying to actively manage," he said. "We've spent a great deal of R&D time, more than our competition, working on integration paths with a lot of the key security players out there.

"Having that broad integration really presents even more opportunity for the channel as we look forward.

"If you look at the vendors that we support with this broad integration, it's not hard to find partners that support some, if not all, of those vendors.

"Think about how compelling it is for a security partner that can go to their mid-enterprise customer and say 'you've got these three parts that are best in class, now we're going to bring you the fourth'."

Keith Christie-Smith, head of European sales at TrapX partner Performanta, said that TrapX's integration with other vendors makes it an easier sell to customers that are becoming increasingly bogged down with masses of output from multiple vendors.

"TrapX as a technology is very good at playing with others," he said. "That's an issue we have with most security vendors out there in the marketplace.

"They are siloed and operate on their own, churning out their own logs and alerts and they require very separate management. In some customers they may have tens of different technologies around the security space and that means a lot of management overheads.

"From a TrapX perspective, because it integrates into end-point technology, network access technology [and] SIEM technology straight out of the box, you can automate a lot of the remediation. That is a game changer."

The technology

Deception is an evolution of traditional honeypotting technology, which lays out a series of traps around the network to trigger alerts when an intruder is found.

Sibille claimed that TrapX takes this concept a step further, and said he believes that TrapX offers the best deception technology in EMEA.

"Honeypotting had its sweet spot between five and seven years ago," he said. "While honeypots back then used deception as a threat-detection method, the new technologies such as ours are so much further advanced.

"We've taken it to the next level and now it's being used by those same enterprise customers for automated diversion and most importantly the prevention of advanced threats.

"We do our best work when the perimeter walls are breached. Every enterprise customer would say they feel confident that they've got a tonne of firewall and hardware on the outer perimeter, so we're for those adversaries that get through the perimeter.

"We pick them up and use advanced decoys and multiple layers of deception to not only lead them away from key assets but also put them in a safe place where we can track them."

Partner programme

Having previously seen a mixture of direct and channel business, TrapX is now in the process of implementing its first partner programme and recently appointed a channel sales director for EMEA.

TrapX is currently distributed in the UK by Arrow, but Sibille said to expect further distribution relationships once the programme has launched.

"We haven't formally launched our programme," he said. "We've been in the initial stage of testing our first global programme over the past few months and I'm very encouraged by some of the results we've got back.

"As someone who has done this at several vendors we're taking our time, but I'm confident that in the coming months we'll formalise the programme."