eSentire acquires cybersecurity AI leader Versive

CAMBRIDGE, ONTARIO and SEATTLE– October 23, 2018 – eSentire, Inc., the largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider, today announced the acquisition of Seattle- based Versive Inc., an award-winning cybersecurity AI company that delivers advanced threat detection and automation with its platform. eSentire also announced the senior leadership appointments of former Versive executives Dustin Rigg Hillard as Chief Technology Officer, Ashley Fidler as Vice President, Product and Matthew Vanderzee as Vice President, Engineering. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Our evolution of MDR blends expert human analysis with AI systems to effectively act on the increasing volume of threats impacting organizations. Traditional managed security approaches and tools can’t rapidly scale to cope with the challenges of today’s business environments,” said Kerry Bailey, CEO, eSentire. “Merging expert data scientists, engineers, and security teams and integrating the power of AI into eSentire services will result in the most advanced MDR platform delivering the scalability, automation, and speed that the modern organization demands without sacrificing quality.”

Increasing data volumes, new computing environments (cloud, hybrid), and more porous networks (e.g. Internet of Things, Bring Your Own Device) mean the corporate attack surface is more dynamic and larger than ever before. By 2025, there will be a projected 163 zettabytes of digital data in existence, a tenfold increase from 2016.^[1] The scale of data growth, in combination with the evolution of digital adversaries and the democratization of hacking tools and skills, necessitates human analysts be equipped with machine-scale technologies.

"Organizations simply cannot keep pace with the rate at which cyber threats are emerging and evolving, especially in the age of digital transformation," said Mike Sapien, Chief Analyst, Enterprise Services, Ovum. "This new-normal environment is driving the growth of the MDR market and leading companies like eSentire within it. The acquisition of Versive, a leading artificial intelligence technology company is a natural progression as eSentire looks to enhance its AI and data science capabilities. Versive's technology will enable eSentire to manage, respond and shut down bad actors in real time at greater scale and accuracy."

The blending of expert analysts with AI for a machine-scale world

eSentire’s evolution of MDR integrates security analyst expertise and technology. eSentire will bring together the power of AI with the existing MDR platform and security analyst expertise to:

• Provide full-spectrum visibility that includes vast amounts of data and signals from users across network, cloud, endpoints, hybrid, and on-premises environments
• Automate threat detection to eliminate noise and false positives, which allows security analysts to focus on complex high-risk investigations and accelerate response times
• Deliver transparent and traceable results with AI (no black-box algorithms)
• Automatically generate plain English descriptions and visualizations of threats
• Stay ahead of the changing adversary landscape and the evolving nature of each customer’s threat surface with dynamic, self-learning AI models

VIDEO: Preview the latest version of this leading-edge, AI-powered technology that automatically generates plain English summaries of a cyber attack, paired with an easy-to-understand visualization.

“Rapidly evolving IT environments require a new approach to security. Automating and scaling security expertise with machine learning is the clear path to protecting organizations facing machine-scale security threats,” said Dustin Rigg Hillard, CTO, eSentire. “This is the perfect partnership to drive the next evolution of the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) category that eSentire created, further integrating human security expertise and machine scale automation to secure customer networks.”

For more information about eSentire’s innovation with the next generation of MDR, read Evolving MDR with Versive Artificial Intelligence by Eldon Sprickerhoff, Founder & Chief Innovation Officer.

About eSentire:

eSentire^® is the largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provider, keeping organizations safe from constantly evolving cyber attacks that technology alone cannot prevent. Its 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC), staffed by elite security analysts, hunts, investigates and responds in real-time to known and unknown threats before they become business disrupting events. Protecting more than $5.7 trillion AUM in the financial sector alone, eSentire absorbs the complexity of cybersecurity, delivering enterprise-grade protection and the ability to comply with growing regulatory requirements. For more information, visit www.esentire.com and follow @eSentire.