BlackHat 2017 Roundup

Last week, ethical hackers, security executives and cybersecurity company representatives made their annual pilgrimage to BlackHat 2017. Walking around the show floor and talking to attendees, I got the feeling that many people had a hard time making sense of the duplicative, vague messages and value propositions from many of the exhibiting companies. I suppose a little confusion is common in any industry—we get bombarded with so many messages—and for us terms like “protect,” “secure” and “analyze” are definitely overused and lack meaning to some degree. So, it’s not surprising that attendees were left wondering what the true differentiators were and how each solution could help them.

In the Forescout booth, we focused on our agentless visibility value proposition and spent time explaining how, in the world of the Internet of Things (IoT), agentless visibility is key to protecting your network. We had the opportunity to present in a few of our key partners’ booths, and there were often follow-up questions about CounterACT®’s agentless discovery capabilities.

I gave a presentation on our new ServiceNow Extended Module and, afterwards, spoke with a healthcare executive who was particularly interested in agentless discovery methods of medical devices. All told, we were able to explain the benefits of the ServiceNow asset management and security operations use cases with Forescout CounterACT and delivered quite the “wow” factor!

IoT and Operational Technology (OT) discussions were common in the Forescout booth, but not nearly as common elsewhere on the show floor. Companies are realizing the importance of managing devices, but to do so comprehensively, you need an agentless solution. CounterACT was clearly sought out as part of that strategy.

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz drew an impressive crowd during signing of his book Hacking Exposed: Network Security Secrets & Solutions. The line wrapped around CrowdStrike’s booth with more than 100 people waiting to buy a copy and meet the author. Great job building buzz and congrats to George on the wild success of his book!

Wednesday evening we had a great turnout at the partner cocktail party hosted by Forsythe with Forescout, CrowdStrike and Exabeam. During the reception, executives from Forescout and CrowdStrike invited customers to talk about some of the use cases we expect to see later this year. Forescout’s Dr. Erick Engleby held court and discussed our “better together” value proposition with customers.

All in all it was a great show and we loved talking to attendees, partners and customers about our solution and strong partner alliances. It’s evident that in the always-connected world of IoT, being able to provide agentless visibility and control, along with breaking down security silos with key industry partners, is the security strategy of today and tomorrow.