Company: Vidder, Campbell, CA
Entry Submitted By: Spalding Communications
Company Description: Vidder’s PrecisionAccess stops cyber attacks before they start. It defeats credential theft, server exploitation, and connection hijacking by dynamically connecting only authenticated users to isolated servers and their protected applications. PrecisionAccess is the industry's first service based on a breakthrough security architecture called the Software Defined Perimeter.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Tech Startup of the Year

Nomination Title: Vectra Networks, Redefining Security

Tell the story about what this nominated organization has achieved since January 1 2014 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Begin this section with the date since January 1 2013 on which this organization began operations.

Cybersecurity defenses typically look for attacks only at the organization’s Internet boundary and main sites. However, today’s breaches prove that remote sites are the weak links in an organization’s attack surface that attackers exploit to gain access, then spread laterally to internal network segments that contain key assets they steal or destroy. These areas often lack the visibility to detect the subtle signs of an attacker spying, spreading and stealing within the network.

To detect cyberattacks that already bypassed the network perimeter, security professionals need automated real-time detection and reporting capabilities, ensuring that there is more than one way to stop the progression of a cyberattack. These security solutions must continuously listen, learn, remember and automatically analyze data in real time to anticipate the cyber attackers' next move to stop them.

In March 2014, Vectra launched the X-series platform, providing continuous real-time detection at every phase of a cyberattack, regardless of how the attack enters an organization's network and the operating system, application or device being attacked. The X-series platform continuously monitors an organization's network and can detect an attack amidst the surrounding network chatter. The X-series monitors internal traffic between users, servers and applications in addition to Internet-bound traffic to detect attacks across the entire attack surface. The X-series provides automated, intuitive and prioritized reporting so security analysts can address the highest business risks quickly, rather than spending valuable time sifting through thousands of alerts.

Since first shipment, the X-series has been deployed in over 75 organizations in the Education, Energy, Entertainment, Finance, Health, Legal, state and local government, and technology markets. Customers include Aruba Networks, CS Technology, Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, Good Technology, Riverbed, Santa Clara University, Tri-State Power Generation and Distribution.

In 2014, Vectra and the Information Security Community on LinkedIn jointly published the BYOD and Mobile Security Study reporting that nearly half of respondents agreed that users bringing downloaded apps or content with embedded security exploits into their organization, as well as malware infections, are top BYOD security concerns. In addition, 60 percent of respondents said that malware protection is a requirement for mobile security. Vectra published a solution brief that identifies gaps in BYOD and mobile device security and explains how its X-series platform addresses those gaps.

Also in 2014, Vectra announced the first edition of its The Post Breach Industry Report, an industry study using real-world data from enterprise networks to reveal what attackers do within a network once they evade perimeter defenses. Collected over five months, the study found that more than 10% of all computers in the study had one or multiple indication of an active cyber attack that had evaded the organization’s perimeter defenses.

In December 2014, Vectra added Community Threat Analysis to the X-series platform to put an organization’s key assets at the center of any threat investigation. Security teams label hosts containing key and Community Threat Analysis dynamically displays the communities of users, hosts and key assets in a network and overlays all of the real-time threat and cyber attack detections. In an instant, a security team can see where threats and attacks are relative to their key assets to further prioritize their highest risks.

In March 2015, Vectra announced the S-series sensor – the industry’s first threat detection platform that extends automated real-time cybersecurity into all corners of an organization, including previous blind spots such as remote sites and internal network segments. In addition to the added security visibility of the S-series sensor, Vectra introduced Detection Triage functionality, enabling security teams to identify and track risky behaviors that can enable or obscure network attacks.

Vectra Networks redefines security with the patent-pending X-series platform that instantly identifies cyber attacks while they are happening as well as what the attacker is doing. Vectra automatically prioritizes attacks that pose the greatest business risk, enabling organizations to quickly make decisions on where to focus their time and resources.

In bullet-list form, briefly summarize up to ten (10) of the chief accomplishments of this organization since the beginning of 2014 (up to 150 words).

1. March 2014 Vectra launched the X-series platform for automated real-time detection of active cyber attacks
2. Charles Giancarlo, Senior Advisor to Silver Lake Partners joins Vectra's Board
3. Jim Messina, founder and CEO of the Messina Group, joined Vectra's Board
4. Vectra raised $25M Series C led by Accel Partners
5. Vectra Joined the A10 Security Alliance with a validated solution for organizations to detect cyber attacks obscured in encrypted network traffic
6. November 2014 Vectra published the first edition of the Industry Post Breach report that used real-world data to reveal what attackers do within a network once they evade perimeter defenses
7. December 2014 Vectra launched Community Threat Analysis to put an organization’s key assets at the center of real-time threat investigations
8. Vectra launched the S-series sensor – the first automated threat detection sensor delivering cybersecurity to previous blind spots in remote sites and internal network segments

Of the following measures of success, which ONE do you want the judges to most appreciate about your organization's story of achievement since the beginning of 2014?

Technical Innovation