Few of us think of cybersecurity spending as discretionary. In other words, with the number of reported ransomware attacks, emergency directives from CISA, and Executive Orders, you would think that rising inflation, a stock market crash, and dire warnings from prognosticators like Harry Dent, would not impact demand for cybersecurity Yet the stock market obviously…
In Discover unreasonably great research! And exploit it, I introduced the concept of Unreasonably Great Research, characterized it briefly via a framework, and offered two examples. This is the second note in a framework-defining series of notes exploring elements of that framework. This one is focused on the science of surveys in general. In a nutshell Research should advance…
In Discover unreasonably great research! And exploit it, I introduced the concept of Unreasonably Great Research, characterized it briefly via a framework, and offered two examples. This note is the first in a framework-defining series exploring the various elements of the unreasonably great research framework. Here, you and I will use the attributes of honesty and transparency…
When I launched IT-Harvest in 2006 I had a vision for a data-driven analyst firm. The name, IT-Harvest, was inspired by the annual olive harvest at Davero Farms hosted by Ridgely Evers the “Father of Quickbooks,” and the CEO of nCircle at the time. I love harvest time–the gathering in, the culmination of each year’s…
Over the past 20 years, cybersecurity has persistently played an unwinnable game. In this game, the attacker makes all the rules, sets all the timers, records all the scores, and can walk away from the game anytime without losing anything. Meanwhile, the defenders are encumbered with a cavalcade of rules, tools, and fools: insidious compliance…
First published at Security Boulevard. When all vendors in a new product category use the same use case to explain their value, I become concerned. About 15 years ago, when bombs were a constant threat in many parts of the world, I heard multiple vendors of intelligent video surveillance explaining the same use case.…
Sometimes I step away from my wheelhouse and write about things other than cybersecurity. This post is one of those times. Because I write books I tend to spend at least as much time researching the publishing industry as I do cybersecurity topics. The publishing industry is primarily based on a model of backing…
I thought it would be interesting to extract the number of cybersecurity vendors by year founded from the Directory portion of Security Yearbook 2021. At first glance, the result is surprising. Only thirteen new cybersecurity vendors in 2020! A total of 41 the year before. That seems extremely low compared to previous years. Has the…
With a little effort it is possible to shoehorn 2,615 cybersecurity vendors into sixteen categories as I have done above. I have long maintained that the cybersecurity industry is growing at a 24% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). I remember in 2003 at Gartner we pegged the total market at $2 billion, which was a…
The following is an excerpt from Security Yearbook 2021. ( Pre-order here for the limited first print run of 2,000.) It originally appeared in Forbes but has been taken down. The lifeblood of the cybersecurity industry is new investments, both in startups and established companies. 272 vendors received additional funding in 2020 based on data…
