Q&A with Heimdal™ CEO Morten Kjaersgaard: Why Unified Cybersecurity Is More Important Than Ever
The Internet is a powerful and vital tool that today’s businesses can use to better promote their products and services by using websites, social media, and other online tools, as well as to reach a global market. However, the new digital environment brings new challenges and threats, particularly in terms of cybersecurity.
Given that 64% of global organizations had to deal with at least one cyberattack in 2021, 46% of these attacks targeted small and midsize businesses, and the total number of cyberattacks increased by 50% compared to the previous year, cybersecurity should be a constant concern.
CEO at Heimdal
We will undoubtedly continue to use technology and be exposed to cyberattacks in the future as technology progresses. As a result, we must be aware of these problems beforehand and take the appropriate precautions to safeguard ourselves.
SourceForge recently caught up with Morten Kjaersgaard, Heimdal™ CEO, to discuss today’s online security challenges, all things cyber awareness, and how Heimdal™ is helping organizations simplify their IT infrastructure, minimize risks and boost productivity.
Heimdal™ is a prominent European supplier of cloud-based cybersecurity solutions, established in Copenhagen, Denmark, back in 2014. Known as a thought leader in the field, Heimdal™ has won numerous international honors for both its products and the development of educational content.
How did Heimdal™ start and what is your point of difference as a business?
Our heritage stems from the idea of the first non-US team that took home the Defcon CTF title in 2011, which leveraged a ground-breaking concept that revolutionizes DNS Security and Automated Patch Management, strengthening any antivirus program.
This groundbreaking idea has since then evolved into the most extensive security offering in the market and the most intelligently connected one as well. We have had some great ideas, which were continuously in line with the development in the market and which, at the same time, have been executed superbly by our Romanian development team.
Globally, businesses are facing increased risks, which is driving us towards a new revolutionary product, which we are hoping to launch this year. This is a product that will allow customers to take back control of their own security and redefine the way we work with cybersecurity, but we can’t disclose more at this point.
While most of our competition are or were data analytics startups, we have a cybersecurity pedigree. We can offer our customers quick out-of-the-box cybersecurity that strengthens their defenses since we have a thorough understanding of cybersecurity concerns and the needs of cybersecurity specialists.
Since we are among the few non-US providers in this market, we can offer both US and European customers a native focus on operational integrity by stopping even the most sophisticated cyberattacks from day one. This is another significant differentiator. Additionally, because we are much more dynamic than our peers, we frequently take innovative approaches to identify threats like ransomware, hidden backdoors, rootkits, brute-force attacks, and undetectable malware.
Please brief us about the solutions you provide to your customers and how they get value
The Heimdal™ suite was developed with efficiency as its top priority. For this reason, every issue— including DNS security, vulnerability management, access privileges, and the avoidance of email-based threats—is addressed by a product in our portfolio.
Threat Prevention, Patch and Asset Management, Endpoint Rights Management, Next-Gen Antivirus, Ransomware Encryption Protection, Email Security, and Remote Desktop are only a few components of the company’s multi-layered security suite, which protects customers against cyberattacks and safeguards sensitive data and intellectual property.
Our products are designed to actively pursue threats in addition to detecting and responding to them. By predicting potential dangers, Heimdal™ can, for example, foresee DNS attacks with an astounding 96% accuracy, enabling you to go beyond conventional EDR and include prevention in your system of defensive layers. Your data assets are secured on all fronts using machine learning, cutting-edge intelligence, and several layers of defense, all through a single, user-friendly interface.
Each and every cybersecurity product in our suite is built to work together as well as with other security tools you may already be using. This is how we manage to accomplish unification, which is what we consider to be the current gold standard in cybersecurity. The Heimdal™ Unified Dashboard, which houses all of our products under one practical umbrella, gives you access to all the data you require and places insightful reporting tools at your disposal.
We pride ourselves on offering a unique security service that streamlines IT infrastructure, reduces risk, and increases productivity by letting you replace up to seven providers with only one.
How does Heimdal™ help companies (and teams) stay safe?
We only make significant improvements when we put ourselves in the shoes of the consumer and attempt to answer the question, “What would actually benefit me if I were having their pain points?” Whether we’re talking about small and medium-sized organizations or multinationals with thousands or millions of people, the benefits of a unified cybersecurity suite are astounding, and businesses adopting it can realize huge returns on their investments.
In order to achieve this, Heimdal™ has made sizable investments in a project that we hope to release later this year and that we believe will fundamentally transform the cybersecurity landscape. In this project, we take our already-unified platform and add another user-friendly, more automated, yet still mind-blowing dimension. Watch out for that.
As we go deeper into the technology, we must also be aware of the possibility that, as a vendor-wide platform, we may not always be the best of our kind. Instead, we must focus our efforts in the areas where we think they will have the greatest influence on the consumer, which for us means preventing the attacker from ever accessing the endpoint and/or obtaining privileged credentials.
We firmly believe that we have a fantastic unified platform as a result, but some areas where it really stands out are DNS security, Patch and Asset Management, Ransomware Prevention, and Privilege Access Management, particularly for Privilege Elevation and Delegation Management. Of course, we tie those into Antivirus, Application Control, Email Security, and Email Fraud Prevention for increased value.
IT managers, CIOs, and CISOs can utilize this unification to monitor the enterprise’s cybersecurity status, manage risks, and respond to them as soon as possible from a dashboard that incorporates intelligence from some or all of the Heimdal™ solutions. In the long run, it’s not only about unity; it’s also about the time saved by using a platform that is user-friendly and doesn’t get stuck in its own tangles while attempting to solve an issue.
Why is unified cybersecurity more important now than ever?
The modern era has increased the reliance on online media and computer systems among corporations, government agencies, small to large organizations, and even the general public. It has enabled us to connect, save, and share a lot more resources globally.
This extensive network increases the risks and opportunities for cybercrime. Hackers now have more ways to gain access to our systems and use the data. We are living in an era where you can no longer trust the sender or receiver you are engaging with because it could be just a man-in-the-middle. Whether that is your best friend, your best supplier, even your co-workers, you need increased scrutiny to make sure you are safe when the weakest link in your chain is compromised.
Cybersecurity knowledge, prevention, and protection are the answers. Regardless of the business you work in or the nature of data you manage, cybersecurity awareness is essential in this day and age, and having a unified cybersecurity strategy is crucial for protecting organizations from cyberattacks.
According to research, businesses failing to have an integrated cyber security plan is the leading cause of cyberattacks, followed by technological flaws and poor risk management practices.
Since both humans and technology make mistakes that lead to avoidable security flaws, traditional cybersecurity solutions are failing. Organizations must improve their cybersecurity in order to stop cybercrime. It is advised that they make use of a robust cybersecurity system that can quickly and accurately identify any advanced attack on their networks.
What is next for Heimdal™?
As we alluded to in some of the above, we believe that we will redefine and revolutionize the way that cybersecurity is being worked with over the next 6 months. We can only ask that people stay tuned, because we can’t share any more details at the moment.
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