Dragos Inc., the global leader in cybersecurity for industrial controls systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT) environments, announced its deepening commitment to Europe to provide industrial and critical infrastructure organisations in the region with the market-leading Dragos Platform, threat intelligence, and services including incident response.
Since first establishing a presence in the UK in October 2021, Dragos has grown to 25 full-time employees across Europe. Leading this expansion are Area Vice President for Europe and Africa Tony Atkins, Chief of Staff Phil Tonkin, Director for International Incident Response Kai Thomsen; and Principal Adversary Hunter and Technical Director Magpie Graham. To accelerate the business further, a growing team of sales, channel, and marketing professionals are bolstering Dragos’s European go-to-market teams.
CIO INFLUENCE: CIO Influence Interview with Pete Lilley, Vice President and GM at Instaclustr
As industrial networks become more connected and homogenous, they present cyber adversaries with a straightforward path to target and infect critical systems at scale. Through Dragos’s continued expansion in Europe, businesses can access the company’s world-leading industrial cybersecurity technology and expertise, enabling organizations to defend against increasingly sophisticated adversaries, detect and respond to incidents, and strengthen resiliency. Additionally, the region’s governments and industrial organisations are increasingly recognising the need for OT-specific cybersecurity to protect businesses as well as society as a whole.In 2022 alone, Dragos identified 605 ransomware attacks against industrial organisations, an increase of 87 percent over the previous year.
“With the current geopolitical environment, the increase in ransomware, and exposures recently introduced through hybrid workforces, the cyber threat to industrial organisations has never been greater,” said Tony Atkins, Area Vice President, Europe & Africa, Dragos. “Our continued expansion in Europe will enable us to not just be a better partner with organisations in the region to ensure they are successful in their industrial cybersecurity journey, but also to help foster the local ICS/OT cybersecurity practitioner community through ongoing education and engagement.”
CIO INFLUENCE: JFrog Software Supply Chain Platform Delivers 393% ROI According to Total Economic Impact Study
Particularly notable for Dragos in Europe is the decades-long OT cybersecurity and industry expertise the team brings. Phil Tonkin, who joined Dragos in January 2022 and was recently promoted to Chief of Staff as the company’s top strategic advisor to the CEO, has worked in the energy sector for 23 years. His career has included roles in electricity transmission, distribution, and generation; gas transmission, distribution, and storage; and IT. Prior to joining Dragos, he led the OT security program at one of the world’s largest investor-owned utilities for five years.
Kai Thomsen, who leads a team of expert ICS incident responders and threat hunters for Dragos in Europe and around the world, has extensive experience in the manufacturing industry including more than 6 years at Audi AG and 14 years in the steel industry. He also serves as a SANS instructor and is often asked to speak to media and audiences about industrial cybersecurity.
Magpie Graham brings more than 16 years in cybersecurity to his role as Technical Director for Dragos’s intel team. He has engineered and architected multiple generations of pan-government IDS, reversed sophisticated nation-state malware, and tracked state-sponsored actors from around the globe. Prior to joining Dragos he led a team of threat intelligence analysts at Microsoft, focused on tracking groups from Eastern Europe and Russia. At Dragos, he sets strategic requirements for capability development, delivering analysis systems, and ensuring the necessary data acquisition required to fuel top-tier threat intelligence.
CIO INFLUENCE: World Password Day: Password advice for CIOs
[To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]
