“Our core offering provides attack prevention and offers additional modules such as Threat Hunting, Breach Reporting and a Virtual CISO service.”
Hi Dr. Darren. Welcome to our Interview Series. Please tell us a little bit about your role and responsibilities in your current company. How did you arrive at the idea of launching BlackFog?
I am the founder and CEO of BlackFog. As such, I drive corporate direction and strategy. The idea for BlackFog came from the realization that cyber attacks are all about the data and no one was actually looking at that aspect, but rather tactical defensive strategies. Existing products focus almost exclusively on stopping attacks from infiltrating the device. BlackFog’s approach is on the exfiltration of data. Without data, cyber gangs have nothing to leverage, not extortion, data espionage, or business disruption.
What is BlackFog and what are your core offerings?
We only sell one solution, BlackFog Anti Data Exfiltration. The whole premise of the company is based upon this philosophy. Our core offering provides attack prevention and offers additional modules such as Threat Hunting, Breach Reporting and a Virtual CISO service.
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What are the critical challenges impeding CIOs and CISOs data security initiatives? How does a company like BlackFog protect IT assets and resources during challenging times?
There are a lot of skeptics in cybersecurity and a lot of reluctance to see the problem from a new perspective. IT professionals have always approached the problem the same way, tactically rather than strategically. Many IT departments have built empires around the existing approach and are unlikely to want to lose power and money by adopting a preventative approach. As the saying goes, why create a solution when there is so much money to be made by prolonging the problem?
We have seen the evolution from Anti Virus to EDR/XDR, SIEM and SOAR, each progressively adding complexity, people, processes, and software, with no real progress in preventing attacks. Each part of the stack was supposedly designed to resolve the limitations of another, but remain additive so that vendors could sell more software to IT departments. In fact, if you just stop the attack from the outset, rather than detect, respond, orchestrate, and remediate you wouldn’t actually need all those solutions. Our goal was to design a solution that uses AI to detect and respond in real-time and remove the threat before there is a problem. The only effective risk and time to remediation should be zero.
Please tell us the biggest factors contributing to the rise of ransomware attacks. What concrete steps should CIOs and CISOs take for ransomware protection and prevent advanced cyberattacks?
There is no single factor contributing to the rise of ransomware, but rather several. Some of the biggest factors relate to the lack of investment in cybersecurity in specific sectors, most notably Education, Government and Healthcare. These sectors have an aging infrastructure and a general lack of investment in modern cybersecurity tools, training, and awareness. The simple fact is any organization can be breached by a focused group of cyber criminals if they want to target you. The key is whether they can get data out of your organization which can be leveraged for extortion, espionage, or general business disruption.
The focus should be on stopping this data exfiltration in the first place.
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You are among the first in the industry to offer a virtual CISO. What are its core capabilities and how does it empower a data organization?
Like any industry, it is critical that you focus on your core business to generate revenue to be successful. Few organizations can afford, or even need a full-time CISO or dedicated cybersecurity professionals. It is much more cost-effective to have these professionals available on a fractional basis. This is the goal of BlackFog’s virtual CISO service. Staffed by law enforcement professionals, forensic investigators and cybersecurity engineers, this team is available whenever you need it and reports weekly or monthly as required. When problems arise, they are there to answer any questions, help decipher reports and respond to any anomalies, and help you navigate the complex world of regulations we now live in.
You recently won three prestigious awards in cybersecurity domains. What’s next in store for BlackFog in this domain?
We are very honored to have won 3 Cybersecurity Excellence awards for our product as well as a more recent Globee Award for our monthly Ransomware report, which is now entering its 4th year. Our goal is not to sit on our laurels, but rather continue to push forward with new products and services to assist our customers globally.
Your take on the future of AI-driven ransomware prevention and cyber threat monitoring: Â Which markets are you planning to grow your products?
AI and specifically behavioral analysis is something we focus heavily on. This is the only real way we can adapt to the dynamic polymorphic nature of new cyber threats. We are constantly evolving the technology in such a way that we can detect new variants in unique ways before they are even released by targeting different parts of the kill chain as they try to exfiltrate data from the device. To that end, we are targeting new platforms to protect the cloud-based delivery of services around the globe. The evolution of the cloud has meant that more and more organizations are being targeted, not only within their own environment but the cloud services themselves. Witness the number of attacks on centralized services in just the past few months on password management products and VPN providers.
An event/ conference or podcast that you have subscribed to consume information about B2B technology industry: If invited, would you like to be part of a podcast episode on IT/ Data Ops, CX and B2B SaaS?
Yes, we would be happy to be involved in any future podcast.
Thank you, Darren! That was fun and we hope to see you back on cioinfluence.com soon.
[To participate in our interview series, please write to us at sghosh@martechseries.com]
Dr. Williams is a serial entrepreneur and founder of 3 technology startups over the last 20 years, two of which have been sold to public companies. He is currently the founder and CEO of BlackFog, Inc. a global cyber security company focusing on ransomware prevention and cyber warfare.
Dr. Williams is responsible for strategic direction and leads global expansion for BlackFog and has pioneered anti data exfiltration technology for the prevention of cyber attacks across the globe.
 Dr. Williams holds a Ph.D. and Bachelor of Science with Honors from the University of Melbourne, authoring several scientific papers and software applications for auto-radiographic densitometry and analysis. He is a dual citizen of both Australia and the United States where he now resides.
Founded in 2015, BlackFog is a global cybersecurity company that has pioneered on-device anti data exfiltration (ADX) technology to protect companies from global security threats such as ransomware, spyware, malware, phishing, unauthorized data collection and profiling. Its software monitors enterprise compliance with global privacy regulations and prevents cyberattacks across all endpoints. BlackFog uses behavioral analysis to preemptively prevent hackers from exploiting vulnerabilities in enterprise security systems and data structures. BlackFog received recognition as a Gold award winner in the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards for Best Data Security and Best Ransomware Protection North America, as well as the Bronze award in Most Innovative Cybersecurity Company and Best Cybersecurity Start-up in 2022. BlackFog was named a 2020 HOT Vendor in Privacy and Security by Aragon Research.
BlackFog’s preventative approach to security recognizes the limitations of existing perimeter defense techniques and neutralizes attacks before they happen at multiple points in their lifecycle. Trusted by corporations all over the world, BlackFog is redefining modern cyber security practices.
