As federal agencies continue to lean into data and digital systems to meet their mission, cybersecurity continues to loom large as a concern.
To understand the current cyber landscape, and how government can stay ahead, we talked to Daniel Wilbricht, general manager of public sector at cybersecurity solutions provider Devo.
What challenges are your federal clients facing?
The biggest challenge revolves around ensuring that their information is secure, everything from backend systems through the cloud and access to Software-as-a-Service or SaaS environments. Whether it’s a foreign actor or an individual, someone is always trying to go after data that they shouldn’t have. Defense Department and civilian agencies are all concerned about that exposure.
In addition, under OMB M-21-31, every log needs to be saved for specific amounts of time. This directive was put out two years ago and it has caused a really expensive problem for agencies that need to collect every single log, and then have to weed through them to find a needle in the haystack.
How does Devo help?
We’re a SaaS application that uses advanced analytics and automation to ensure that we find the bad actors quickly: whether it’s someone trying to hack into your system, or ransomware that they’ve planted. Devo monitors your networks and alerts you when we find suspicious threat activities and enables you to take action, automatically. We’re all about trying to automate the protection of your information.
Devo uniquely allows you to cost-effectively store all required data in the cloud, in a protected environment, and use automation to speed the detection and response to threats.
What differentiates yours from other cyber-related offerings?
Since day one, Devo has been created to take advantage of that cloud infrastructure. There’s no one else in our space that was created for the cloud, to scale at the levels that we scale at and layer on AI-powered analytics to augment the capabilities of teams.
We can ingest and alert on data in real-time and then automatically investigate the threat without an analyst spending any manual effort, this makes agencies more capable of stopping threats before damage is done.
Where do you see opportunity for growth?
My customers are going to have terabytes or petabytes of data that they need to collect and alert on, and they need very quick response times.
On the federal side, every civilian agency has to store every single piece of log data for up to one year. That adds up, fast. So they’re a primary target of opportunity for us. In DOD and intel, they require rapid alerting on their specific network.
And there’s a need for the ability to scale quickly in the federal space. During tax season, for example, the IRS needs to monitor information in near real-time. And likewise in DOD and intel, with their very sensitive data or weapon systems, they need to react quickly when situations change.
When we go head-to-head with other vendors, we win because of our total value: the lower cost, plus the speed at which we can respond to threats. When you add them together, all of those things make our value stronger ⏤ when we have the opportunity.
What’s the challenge there?
Compared to some of the vendors, we’re fairly new to the government space. I’ve been here two years, and my focus has been on growing our brand. I’m reaching out, meeting with the integrators, and meeting with the C-level folks across the government.
Another challenge is that most agencies already have some sort of solution in place ⏤ but many of them are unhappy with what they have. The current product or solution is taking way too much of their budget for what it delivers.
To stand out we’ve created a platform that has the ability to do more than just collect logs. It provides the advanced analytics necessary for organizations to protect their assets in near real time. Built into our platform we also have the ability to look at individual behavior, with behavior-analytics technology, helping find the traditionally hard-to-detect threats that linger within networks for months.
Devo is also one cost for everything, it’s easy to implement, and it reduces the change risk, which is a common concern for prospects. When we can reduce the fear of change, that gives us an opportunity.
What makes this work meaningful and satisfying for you?
My friends and I always joke that if I was in commercial, my life would be a lot easier. Public sector is more difficult, it’s more challenging. But my philosophy has always been to provide the best solutions I can to support our nation and its people. That’s why I love what I do.
I enjoy protecting our people and our government, especially when I have a disruptive solution that works and that I can stand behind. I appreciate having the opportunity to improve my customers’ day-to-day lives, and offer them a solution that can both save them money, and give them the capabilities they need.