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NISOS – A Managed Intelligence company offering a world-class intelligence capability

NISOS – A Managed Intelligence company offering a world-class intelligence capability

Threat intelligence has become such a crucial part of cybersecurity as it helps you proactively determine any potential threats to your business. The hard truth about present-day cybersecurity is that while it is effective, businesses cant depend entirely on them to defend against every potential threat. But managed threat intelligence, which has been the new buzz in the market, provides many extended benefits apart from essential cybersecurity. It maximizes cost efficiency while ensuring safety from the latest threats and provide a deeper understanding of a company's potential risk. Nisos is the Managed Intelligence company. Their services enable security, intelligence, and trust & safety teams to leverage a world-class intelligence capability tailored to their needs. We had an interview with David Etue, the CEO of Nisos, to get a better understanding of the services offered. Here are a few excerpts of the interview:

Q. What was the idea that inspired the establishment of NISOS?

Nisos was founded by Justin Zeefe and Landon WInkelvoss, who continue to have critical roles with the company. Prior to founding Nisos, Justin and Landon had worked in intelligence for the US Government. For years they witnessed attacks increasingly targeting the private sector, and they saw that threat actors were outpacing the commercial sector. The increasing gap in capability and skillsets often limit a company's ability to meaningfully and lawfully respond to an attack. They founded Nisos to help bridge that gap.

Q. Have there been any setbacks in the firm's journey so far?

Nisos is a young company, and sure we have had setbacks. That said, setbacks create learning experiences. Taking risks can lead to setbacks, but you don't create transformative capabilities without doing so. In some ways, Nisos is ahead of the market. We broke new ground with our  Managed Intelligence services and our Adversary Insight Retainer, both of which are driving breakthrough success for our clients. We believe we are just getting started on the opportunity to help make intelligence actionable for organizations, and we will continue to learn and adapt. 

Q. Why are your solutions and services so relevant in today's age? Could you give us some context?

Threat actors are growing increasingly sophisticated. Defending against these adversaries requires a degree of technical sophistication, data, and expertise not required even a few years ago. Our intelligence capability, rooted in robust multi-source data collection and analysis, brings an important lens to sophisticated threat actors' malicious intent and capability. This fusion of capabilities is exacted through Nisos' tier-one experts drawn from both government service and enterprise, which enable us to tackle – and resolve – complex client problems that others simply cannot.

Q. Tell us about your full range of services.

Nisos is the Managed Intelligence Company. Our services fall into six categories: Cyber Intelligence delivering outside the firewall intelligence, including threat hunting, insider investigations, and dark web monitoring. Platform Intelligence to further the Trust and Safety mission by protecting platforms and users against fraud, abuse, and e-crime. Fraud Intelligence to address systemic or institutional exploitation of products or applications and infrastructure for financial gain. Reputation Intelligence to combat issues including brand abuse and disinformation. Protective Intelligence which assesses digital and physical threats to executives, key individuals, facilities, and physical assets. And Third Party Intelligence to address investor and vendor risk without questionnaires or security ratings.

Q. What sets you apart from others in cybersecurity and threat intelligence?

There is no shortage of CTI data feeds or companies selling them. Organizations are overwhelmed with data, yet the industry seems to continue to create a colossus of threat data. But the problem organizations face is how to use all of that data, especially in an environment with limited resources, constrained budgets, and a worldwide talent shortage.

Nisos delivers the opposite - timely, relevant, and actionable finished intelligence for our client's organization. We deliver that from our multi-source data collection, intelligence platform, and a team of field-seasoned experts. Our sources go beyond traditional CTI feeds, bringing a unique perspective to clients' challenges and risks, including the ability to attribute or unmask individual actors and technical analysis of their methods.

Q. How important are partnerships to your company?

Organizations rarely succeed in a vacuum, and partnerships are an essential part of a well-functioning business. Partnerships should be complementary and unlock more value than the partners would alone. We have partnerships with law firms, service providers, technology companies, and value-added resellers. Each one helps make our clients more successful.

Q. What does innovation mean to NISOS? How is the company keeping up as the intelligence landscape changes?

The very nature of our industry shows us that if you don't innovate, you won't be in business very long. Innovation is at the top of our priority list. Threat actors innovate more than anybody. We must match that innovation. One of today's battles is identifying and analyzing threats faster, more efficiently, and more accurately. The difference between threat intelligence and threat data is analysis. Our rapid pace of innovation enables us to push the industry forward and deliver timely, relevant, and actionable threat intelligence as we continue to advance our technology platform, automation, and processes and methodologies.

Q. How did you innovate to help out during the breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic? How has the pandemic affected the company?

The pandemic had an impact as the speed of threats moving to the digital plane accelerated. As that happened, we successfully helped our clients address emerging threats. Much of our investigation and analysis is done "outside the firewall" through open-source intelligence (OSINT) investigation. As such, the shift to a remote, internet-based work environment had minimal impact on our ability to meet our client's needs. We overcame pandemic obstacles and continued our momentum in both acquiring blue-chip clients and expanding with our existing clients by helping them achieve success and address risks.

Q. What is NISOS currently working on? What can we expect from you in the near future?

Nisos believes that a change is occurring in the threat intelligence marketplace and that change is what we call Managed Intelligence™. We believe that intelligence is the next critical capability in enterprise defense. Practically every risk now traverses the digital plane, and intelligence provides unique insight to address those risks. Much like incident response retainers and managed detection & response have transformed cyber defense capabilities, intelligence is what takes those capabilities to the next level. It addresses other risks in the cyber domain, including fraud, abuse, eCrime, disinformation, and reputation attacks. We believe that accessing those capabilities via a services provider will transform organizations' ability to manage these risks.

About the CEO

David Etue is the CEO of Nisos and has over 20 years of experience at early-stage and mature companies. He joined the company from BlueVoyant, where he was Global Head of Managed Security Services. Previously, he was VP of Managed Services at Rapid7, where he drove the creation, execution, and strategic vision of the managed services offerings globally. David also serves as a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute (NSI) at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School. 

"Nisos was formed to support intelligence professionals who needed unmatched actionable multi-source intelligence that disrupts adversarial operations."

"Nisos is focused on delivering advanced capabilities in a manner that is easily consumable by our current and potential clients. Our subscriptions and retainers provide them with scalable access to expert capabilities."


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