Demisto Launches Channel Program, Tackles Glaring Security Analyst Shortage

Written by James Anderson
June 21, 2017

The shortage of security analysts means a juicy revenue opportunity for security automation.

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Demisto, the security automation provider, has launched a channel program for managed security services providers (MSSPs).

Demisto’s Bob Kruse

Demisto, which already sells 100 percent through the channel, announced the Nucleus channel program on Wednesday. Bob Kruse has joined the company from Optiv to serve as Demisto’s vice president of alliances; he will lead the new program.

Kruse tells Channel Partners that the security automation and orchestration market is ripe because of how badly security analysts need help with their data.

“If you can envision a rise-over-run type of graph, you’ve got the intersection of two lines, and the line that’s increasing is the amount of security solutions and security alert out of the market today, and that line that’s decreasing is the amount of people that know what these alerts mean and how to operate these devices,” he said.

Rishi Bhargava, Demisto’s co-founder and vice president of marketing, says Demisto is in effect trying to solve a problem that the security market has created by making a surplus of solutions and devices.

“There’s a barrage of alerts coming out of security information systems, and there [are] not enough analysts to address those problems,” Bhargava said.

Demisto’s Rishi Barghava

Demisto says its security operations platform is designed to make life easier for analysts by connecting them to chat bots that essentially serving as their assistants. The bots can take hundreds of commands from the worker to evaluate potential incidents.

“The bot is able to automate a large percentage of response tasks, and only 5 percent in some cases [are] what a human analyst is looking at,” he said.

The partner program offers deal registration, and Kruse says there will be pricing protection for the partners that provide value. Partner types are MSSPs, consultants, integrators and technology partners. Kruse says Demisto is looking to selectively recruit new partners.

“We are a company that needs to focus our resources on those that provide the most value,” he said. “A lot of what we look for in partners is based on what we integrate with.”

Kruse says Demisto wants to work with partners that already are selling solutions from vendors like Splunk, Palo Alto and FireEye, and to verticals like health care, critical infrastructure and financial services.

Critical Start, a network security consulting services provider and a reseller for multiple southern states, is a new Demisto partner. Tera Davis, Critical Start’s managing director, says her company evaluates vendors from an engineering perspective and “checked off all the boxes” with Demisto.

“Their partner program is very rich, which shows their commitment to the channel,” she said.

Existing partners in the program are: