Are you getting ready for the upcoming Black Hat USA 2023 event, an internationally recognized cybersecurity event providing the most technical and relevant information security research, now in its 26th year. The event is quickly approaching, taking place August 5-10, 2023, returning to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas, NV with a 6-day program.
Ahead of the show, VMblog received an exclusive interview with Bryan Gale, Vice President of Product Marketing at SentinelOne, a leader in autonomous cybersecurity. You’re going to want to make sure you get them on your MUST SEE list.
VMblog: Before we get into it, can you give us a quick overview of the company? What should folks know?
Bryan Gale: SentinelOne is at the cutting edge of the cybersecurity sector, leading the way in autonomous security. Our mission is to empower companies with the ability to rapidly detect and swiftly respond to any cyber threat, every second of every day, fortifying their defenses today and future-proofing them for tomorrow.
We’re living in an era of rapidly advancing cyber threats, where cybercriminals are using sophisticated tools like deep learning models, neural networks, and generative AI to launch damaging attacks. We combat these threats by employing these same state-of-the-art technologies, equipping security teams with the capability to identify and respond to threats at lightning speed.
At the heart of our offerings is the SingularityTM Platform, built atop the industry’s only unified security data lake. This platform, facilitated by a single agent, provides a truly unified administrative and management view, leading to streamlined implementations, enhanced protection, and reduced training requirements for security teams. Moreover, it offers improved automation of security workflows, making it easier to stay ahead of threats. SentinelOne is more than just a reactive measure against cyber threats. We are a proactive solution that mitigates risks, reduces potential damage, and enhances the overall efficiency of security operations.
VMblog: What is your message to Black Hat attendees coming out to the show this year?
Gale: The spotlight is now on artificial intelligence – it’s no longer an optional luxury, but a cornerstone of modern cybersecurity strategy. Cybersecurity today demands the fusion of human intelligence and cutting-edge automation, because at the end of the day, human intelligence alone simply cannot keep up. Our tools are designed to minimize alert fatigue that the evolving threat landscape is placing on cyber professionals and reduce mean-time-to-response, while operating effectively at cloud scale and machine speed.
And it’s crucial to remember that cybersecurity is a collective endeavor. Our focus extends beyond merely safeguarding endpoints, data or identities. Our primary objective is to equip security professionals with the clear visibility and advanced tools necessary to ensure comprehensive protection for their organizations.
VMblog: The show is focused on cybersecurity. What specific problems is your company and technology addressing?
Gale: Most organizations we talk to face three common cybersecurity challenges. First, the rapid evolution and expansion of attack surfaces is amplifying the complexity of securing their digital assets. Second, a considerable skills shortage in the cybersecurity sector leaves many companies vulnerable. And last, the industry’s reliance on disjointed, siloed tools complicates the task of ensuring comprehensive protection for people, infrastructure, and data.
This is precisely where SentinelOne’s Singularity platform becomes indispensable. By extending detection and response capabilities across various security layers, Singularity XDR provides a solution to these prevailing challenges. It furnishes security teams and C-level executives, who are often resource-strapped, with end-to-end visibility and automated response capabilities across their entire technology stack.
Moreover, our revolutionary threat hunting platform, Purple AI, drastically simplifies security operations. It enables defenders to manage every aspect of enterprise security – from gaining visibility to launching responsive measures – in ways that were previously unimaginable. In essence, SentinelOne addresses the complexities of the modern cybersecurity landscape, effectively bridging gaps in talent and technology.
VMblog: The market is a crowded space. What is it about your company and technology that sets you apart from the competition? What are your differentiators?
Gale: We distinguish ourselves by constantly creating innovative technologies and comprehensive security solutions. Our autonomous Singularity Security Platform, underpinned by advanced AI and ML technologies, provides organizations with unparalleled protection and rapid threat detection and response. This empowers businesses to significantly minimize Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR).
Our unique offering is the Singularity Platform, which is built on the only cloud-native, unified security data lake in the industry. This platform integrates endpoint security, identity threat protection, vulnerability management, attack surface management, and exceptional cloud security solutions, providing businesses with complete, real-time visibility and protection of their entire digital landscape.
Another key differentiator in our arsenal is Purple AI, our generative AI threat hunting platform. This cutting-edge capability turns average security analysts into exceptional ones, enabling proactive threat identification and response minimizing risk. Along with supporting legacy and cross-platform operating systems, our comprehensive cloud workload protection stands out in the market as well.
VMblog: What are some of the top priorities you believe attendees at Black Hat should be considering for 2023/2024?
Gale: While each company is unique, we all find ourselves in a continuously evolving threat landscape that we must defend against. So attendees should prioritize their understanding of their ever-expanding attack surface, they likely need to solve their own cybersecurity skills shortage, and they need to figure out how to integrate disjointed security tools. The focus should also be on adapting to the ongoing digital transformations and implementing AI-powered solutions like SentinelOne’s Singularity Platform. These tools minimize response times, automate SOC processes, and enhance visibility and protection across the entire technology stack from the endpoint into their cloud infrastructure and workloads. Embracing advancements in threat hunting, such as our generative AI solution, Purple AI, will also empower security teams to stay ahead of sophisticated threats and turn an average analyst into a superstar.
VMblog: You are sponsoring the upcoming Black Hat USA event. How can attendees find you at the show? Does your booth have a theme? How many folks are you sending?
Gale: We are a top sponsor of Black Hat USA 2023 and you can find us front and center on the show floor at booth #1520. We will be back with our famous “data tree,” a focal point that is always a hit with attendees. Fun fact: it weighs over two tons! We have a large group of SentinelOne employees joining us, including some of our C-suite and senior level executives, along with our SMEs who will be able to speak to all things S1.
VMblog: Is this your first time sponsoring Black Hat? If not, how many times have you sponsored before? And, what keeps you coming back?
Gale: We’ve been a sponsor of Black Hat for many years. It is one of the industry’s premier events and it draws a certain caliber of attendees whom we love to engage with because we understand their pain points and are uniquely positioned to help solve them.
VMblog: What will you be showing off at the show this year?
Gale: In April, we unveiled Purple AI, a revolutionary threat-hunting platform that integrates multiple layers of AI technology to deliver unparalleled security capabilities and real-time, autonomous response to attacks across the entire enterprise. The solution represents a major leap forward in cybersecurity. By allowing users to automate response and take action without the need for coding skills and process and analyze petabytes of data in near-real time, it promises to radically simplify security operations and empower defenders in unprecedented and unforeseen ways. And attendees who visit our booth can see it in action.
VMblog: Does your company have any speaking slots at Black Hat? If so, can you tell us more about those sessions so people can get them on their schedules?
Gale: We will be speaking in the first session on Wednesday morning after the doors open at 10:20 am. And attendees will not want to miss it, as Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, Senior Director of SentinelLabs will provide an interesting take on one of the hottest topics going: HypeGPT: What LLMs Really Can and Can’t Do for Security. More information can be found here.
VMblog: Is your company giving away any interesting tchotchke at your booth? What is it?
Gale: We will have limited edition Black Hat t-shirts and socks available for those who join us for an in-booth theater presentation. And as a sponsor of the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team, we’ll also raffle off some awesome racing swag.
VMblog: Is your company involved in any parties during the event?
Gale: We are excited to be sponsoring events from two of our great channel partners, Guidepoint and Optiv, on Tuesday and Wednesday evening.
VMblog: As a show sponsor, do you have any tips for attendees to better prepare for the conference?
Gale: Plan your schedule in advance, sleep as much as you can before you land, and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate! Black Hat is a whirlwind few days and you can’t see and do all that it has to offer. Focus on what matters most to you and your organization and in addition to formal sessions, make time for informal networking events. The insights you gather from your peers are invaluable.
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