Join us as Sean Martin hosts CORO Security’s Dror Liwer live from the show floor at Infosecurity Europe 2024 in London, where they discuss CORO's mission to protect SMEs across the globe.
Here we are, once again from the bustling show floor at Infosecurity Europe 2024 in London, situated at the Excel Centre. Sean Martin of ITSP Magazine is your host, and he's joined by Dror Liwer, co-founder of CORO Security. Both are excited to dive deep into how CORO is expanding its focus into the European market.
Day Three: Nonstop Conversations and Presentations
From the get-go, Dror shares his enthusiasm about being part of this prestigious event for the first time. With a primary presence in the U.S., CORO is now aggressively moving into EMEA, starting right here in London. This move is in response to increasing demand from small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe who need robust cybersecurity solutions.
Addressing the Security Needs of SMEs
Sean recalls the comprehensive capabilities of CORO discussed in previous episodes. CORO provides multiple layers of security tailored to an organization’s specific needs, such as regulatory requirements, budget, and staffing capabilities. Sean encourages everyone to revisit those insightful seven-minute chats from RSA Conference to get an in-depth view.
Dror emphasizes that CORO is unique in targeting the mid-market from the ground up, unlike other companies that retrofit enterprise solutions to fit smaller businesses. With a focus on simplicity and powerful protection, CORO ensures that its solutions are manageable even for lean IT teams.
Navigating the Complexities of Europe
One of the significant discussions revolves around the differences between the U.S. and European markets. While Sean and Dror acknowledge the similar types of cyber threats faced globally, operational nuances like data residency and privacy regulations differ widely across Europe. CORO has established a data center in Germany to comply with local data residency requirements, ensuring that email and file inspections stay within the EU boundaries.
Real-World Applications and Challenges
Sean drives the conversation into the specific challenges CORO has faced and the different attack scenarios in Europe compared to the U.S. Dror mentions that while SME awareness of being targets has been prevalent in the U.S. for a while, European SMEs are just beginning to realize the same. As a result, CORO is educating this market about the imminent threats and how to efficiently protect against them without becoming overwhelmed.
The Importance of Affordability
Dror and Sean discuss the financial challenges faced by SMEs, such as difficult decisions on whether to invest in cybersecurity or other critical needs like educational resources. Dror emphasizes that CORO has priced its suite of security solutions to remove this barrier, making comprehensive coverage affordable for even the smallest enterprises.
Team and Technology: The Backbone of CORO
The conversation takes a moment to appreciate CORO’s dedicated team. Sean praises the high energy and mutual support visible at CORO’s booth. Dror points out that customer reviews often highlight how easy it is to work with CORO—a testimony to the company’s dedication to protecting overlooked small and mid-sized businesses.
The Future of SME Cybersecurity
CORO aims to remove the guesswork ("threat roulette”) for SMEs by providing an all-encompassing platform that is accessible and easy to manage. This approach ensures that small businesses can protect themselves comprehensively without the need to prioritize between different threat vectors due to budget constraints.
CORO’s Mission
As the conversation winds down, Dror reiterates CORO's mission to protect SMEs globally and make cybersecurity as effortless as possible. Sean encourages attendees of Infosecurity Europe to visit CORO's dynamic and innovative booth, and for those who cannot make it, to check out CORO online. For more information, visit CORO's website at Coro.net
Thanks to everyone for joining us. Expect more exciting updates from CORO, possibly next time from Las Vegas!
Learn more about CORO: https://itspm.ag/coronet-30de
Note: This story contains promotional content. Learn more.
Guest: Dror Liwer, Co-Founder at Coro [@coro_cyber]
On LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/drorliwer/
Resources
Learn more and catch more stories from CORO: https://www.itspmagazine.com/directory/coro
View all of our InfoSecurity Europe 2024 coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/infosecurity-europe-2024-infosec-london-cybersecurity-event-coverage
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Directly From The CORO Security Modular Booth: Expansion Into The European Market | A Brand Story Conversation From InfoSecurity Europe 2024 | A CORO Story with Dror Liwer | On Location Coverage with Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli
Please note that this transcript was created using AI technology and may contain inaccuracies or deviations from the original audio file. The transcript is provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a substitute for the original recording, as errors may exist. At this time, we provide it “as it is,” and we hope it can be helpful for our audience.
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[00:00:00] Sean Martin: Here we are. We're live from the show floor at InfoSecurity Europe in London at the Excel Drawer. It's great to see you.
[00:00:09] Dror Liwer: Great to see you again, man.
[00:00:10] Sean Martin: I know. We have such good conversations. I appreciate you taking time with me out of the busy events.
It's been three days of goodness, has it?
[00:00:18] Dror Liwer: It's been three days of nonstop conversations, presentations. It was a really a very, very good event. Our first time being in this event in London. Right. Uh, as you know, we have a lot of people here. We're very focused on the U. S. market, and now, um, because of demand, we're moving aggressively into EMEA as well, starting with London, of course.
[00:00:41] Sean Martin: Yep, absolutely. And a lot of SMEs in Europe as well that need help, and As we've discussed many times, and I would encourage folks to look back at our conversation from RSA, and we actually did a 7 minute chat as well to kind of really get to the point quickly. But what Quorl does is provides all of the layers of security that an organization needs based on their desired security posture, their regulatory requirements.
Their ability to, to staff and the budget and all this, all these things, you can dial what you, what they need. Um, so I would encourage everybody to look at all the, all the components that Coro provides and look back at that, uh, that, uh, that podcast or video we did from RSA conference. But, uh, maybe just a quick overview again, the elevator pitch to kind of set the stage, and we're going to get into some interesting things about, uh, different markets.
[00:01:38] Dror Liwer: So Coro is the only platform that was designed from the ground up to cater to mid market. Unlike the entire industry that is around us here that is focused on the enterprise and tries to shove an enterprise product down a mid market company or an SMB's throat, we are very focused from day one on building the right product with the right features for that market that helps them protect their users, the endpoints they use, the networks they're connecting through.
The cloud services, the email, the data, all in one platform, one dashboard, one endpoint agent, nothing too, uh, very, very easy to use, uh, and very, uh, powerful security that even, uh, A very lean IT team, let alone a cybersecurity team, can manage on their own.
[00:02:28] Sean Martin: Right. And, you know, we talked about this briefly before as well, but bringing an enterprise product down to the mid size market serves the provider.
[00:02:40] Dror Liwer: Absolutely.
[00:02:41] Sean Martin: Not the, not the customer.
[00:02:44] Dror Liwer: Absolutely. I always say that Uh, this entire industry is happy to take the mid market or the small businesses, uh, companies money, but not so happy in building the right product for them. And that's where we come in. We've built something from the ground up that is designed for them, that makes their lives so much easier, and lets them focus on their business and not worry about cybersecurity.
So, let's talk about some of the I'm sure there are a lot of similarities, but some differences as well in the different markets. And, of course, the U. S. is huge, right? And there, there's some nuances in terms of, like, privacy regulations and, but there are some general guidelines in this that organizations can follow.
When you get into Europe, it's a little more dispersed, different, different regulations as well. Um, what are some of the differences you're seeing as you, as you approach this market?
So, as you know, for the first Uh, for the last four or five years, um, we were focused on the U. S. market and we tried, the reason was we wanted to prove the thesis that this mid market and small business, um, market is viable.
They need what we offer and we proved that there was a product market fit. The European market actually has a bigger SME, SMB community. Um, as a matter of fact, uh, it's, it's almost by an order of magnitude bigger. This entire economy in Europe is based on mid market and small businesses. There are enterprises, but there are much fewer than in the U.
S. So I think that from a product market fit, there is a phenomenal product fit here. What's different here First off, of course, data residency. We had to open a data center here in the EU to make sure that we comply. We, as Quoro, comply and as such, our customers will comply with local data residency and privacy regulations.
[00:04:47] Sean Martin: And this is for things like email and protection and stuff like that?
[00:04:50] Dror Liwer: For email, for cloud, for Because we do inspect files, we do inspect emails, so nothing could leave the EU. Yeah. Um, and with opening a data center here, we were able to do that. Um, the, the biggest differences were mostly we view the U. S.
also as a leading indicator. So, SMBs, SMEs in the U. S. understood that they are a target two years ago. SMBs, SMEs in Europe are beginning to really understand it now. Uh, because the attackers have shifted, they've, they've done an awful job of targeting, uh, well, very good job for them, awful job for the end users, but they've done, they've really targeted mid market and small businesses in the U.
S. and now they're beginning to do that here in Europe very aggressively. Uh, so local market, uh, local SMBs, SMEs now understand that, uh, we are a target too and we need protection and the protection that is being provided, uh, by the industry at large overlooks us. So this is really where we come in. So that's one thing that is very different.
The second thing that is very different is there are nuances around, uh, privacy regulations and residency regulations in different countries. And, uh, there is always the challenge that we're now working through in being able to analyze different languages. So the U. S., one language for 350 million people.
[00:06:28] Sean Martin: Even just figs, just throw figs in and that's a fun one, right?
[00:06:33] Dror Liwer: And here, yeah, yeah, yeah, here you have, um, Four major languages, and then 35 others. So, it makes it very challenging, um, and of course
[00:06:45] Sean Martin: We're talking about things like ransomware
[00:06:47] Dror Liwer: Exactly, so we're talking about ransomware, phishing, uh, spear phishing, um, um, um, HTTP insertions, things of that sort.
That now our engine needs to learn how to deal with multiple languages. And we're very happy to say that it's doing it much faster than we had expected. Uh, because the volume is so, so large. So, we're very serious about the European market. We've built a data center in Germany. We've built a very nice team here in London.
We have about 30 people here right now. We expect it to double by the end of this year. Um, and, and our servicing mid market and small businesses in Europe is just as critical to the world's health economy, like the health of the world's economy as it is when we do it in the US.
[00:07:38] Sean Martin: Yeah, yeah, it's an excellent point.
I'm gonna take a moment to say how impressed I am by your team. Thank you. I mean, it's really impressive. I saw you, I saw you rally everybody around this morning. The energy is amazing. Yeah. It's all super nice. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Which is an important piece of the puzzle.
[00:07:57] Dror Liwer: So if you read our G2 reviews, you see that one of the key comments that our customers are making And we have no way to control those comments, um, is how easy it is to work with us as a company.
Both partners and customers, they love working with us because we are there to help them. We view this as a mission. Every employee at Coro. Views protecting the overlooked as we call them. We protect the small and mid sized businesses that need protection and our mission in life is to make sure that one, we protect them and two, that dealing with us is as effortless as having your morning coffee.
[00:08:39] Sean Martin: So the sales engagement, the support engagement, the maintenance engagement, the response engagement, all purpose built for them. All purpose built. Not just the technology.
[00:08:50] Dror Liwer: Exactly. It's the entire package. It can't be just the technology. Yeah, the technology is amazing. Right. The technology is amazing.
Everybody that comes in and sees it, we've had literally hundreds of demos that we've done over the last three days here. Everybody that sees the technology loves it. It's amazing. But that's just the building block. It's the technology, it's the sales process, it's the support, it's the help that they get, it's the education that we provide them to make sure that they understand the threat landscape and what they need to do.
All of this combined creates a real end to end experience for that mid market customer or small business that they would never get from anybody on this floor because they're not a priority for them. They are the only priority for us.
[00:09:34] Sean Martin: Right. Yeah, and they have so many opportunities. Any thoughts on this?
I'll, I'll refrain from the, the, the bashing of others. But anyway, the, the point is very positive experience. I, I'm curious to know, are there any, are there any comments or questions that you've heard these past few days that I don't know, strike you as different or interesting? Yeah, yeah. That you heard,
[00:09:58] Dror Liwer: so, so I think this entire industry is buzzword driven, right?
So two years ago it was all about, um, Zero Trust. Everybody was talking Zero Trust. Then, um, last year it was AI. Everybody was talking AI. This year it's platformization. So we have customers coming in and saying, we were first to market with a platform. You know very well that we are a true platform with modules that are attached to it and you can turn them on and off on demand.
So we are a real platform. Now everybody says platform. So customers are coming in and asking, How's your platform different? Uh, and, and we're like, Well, we are a platform. All of these other people that say that they're a platform, they're not. They are a product that now changed its name to a platform.
And I'm not going to name names, but some of the stories I hear like, Uh, there is one company that, that is an endpoint company that shall remain unnamed that says that they are now a platform, but if you want cyber, uh, email security, they're actually selling somebody else's email security, and it's two different products.
How is that a platform?
[00:11:06] Sean Martin: Right, yeah. Well, uh, so many moons ago, I built a platform from the ground up to host, I built a SIEM, to host security management across a bunch of products. That's hard, and if you, if you have a bunch of products and then try to add a platform to it, Just not gonna work. We bought a bunch of companies that tried to do that as well, and it's, there's a lot of challenges.
And I guess the biggest point I'll make is that when you start to do that, you continue to reinforce, It's the serving of the enterprise. They're the only ones that can deploy a platform in addition to a bunch of products as opposed to a solution that happens to be a platform from the beginning.
[00:11:55] Dror Liwer: Exactly right, exactly right. This was designed from the ground up for my market and we went the platform way because we understood that they cannot deal with 15, 20, 25 different products, integrate them, manage them, chase different events on different dashboards. The reason we built this was because it was the right thing to do for this market.
We didn't come up one day and say, oh, let's build a platform. We looked at the market and understood what was necessary and there were three things. One, instead of multiple products, one platform. Two, it had to be affordable, because so they could afford it. And three, we had to remove workload because they're overworked.
So a lot of this, a lot of the chasing of events and so forth is completely automated in this platform. So we offloaded a lot of the work from humans to machines. And with these three things, we created something That my market can actually take on and, uh, be secure and, um, effortlessly not worry about cyber security anymore.
Just worry about their business.
[00:13:07] Sean Martin: Are there any, any threat scenarios, any response scenarios, any business scenarios that stand out from the European market? I don't know if you find a different sector that's, uh,
[00:13:22] Dror Liwer: Look, I, I, the way we look at this, um, we don't see any difference in the types of threads, the vectors, uh, they're pretty uniform.
Um, the only thing that is different here is language, so the language models are very different. And, um, what we haven't seen in Europe that we have seen in the U. S. a lot of, and we think that it's coming, is, um, very aggressive attacks on, uh, the education sector, where you see in the U. S., I'm sure you see every week almost, either a school district gets shut down School gets, uh, ransomware and sends all their students home.
We haven't seen as much of it here yet, but we know whatever happens in the U. S. ends up making it here because the attackers learn what works and just import it, uh, into this market. So, uh, I would expect this. To start happening here as well.
[00:14:21] Sean Martin: Yeah. And they, they expand their business too. , it's a business.
We know
[00:14:26] Dror Liwer: cyber attacks are a business, big business, multi-billion, tens of billions of dollars a year. People profit off of it. It's a business. And some of these organizations, uh, operate like corporations with a hierarchy and a bonus structure. And, you know, uh, uh, salary plans for those who excel and all, all kinds of things.
This is a big business and learning in the U. S. and focusing on the U. S. and getting something perfected from a hacker's perspective, from an attacker perspective in the U. S. and then importing it or even renting it out. into the European market is very common. So a lot of what we're seeing in the U. S. as what we call novel attacks, then very quickly become commoditized and then become attack as a service.
And then anybody here in Europe can rent the service and deploy it here very easily. So what we've seen on the education front in the U. S. that has spiked tremendously over the last 18 I would be I think we're going to see a lot of this here in Europe as well.
[00:15:35] Sean Martin: One of the things that Marco and I kind of pulled out from this event is this idea of making difficult decisions, especially when budgets are really tight.
And that's this group here that we're talking about, the SME, SMB space. But even the larger ones have this challenge of, let's pick healthcare. Do we provide a better service? Do we provide more educational resources or do we invest in cyber security? And that trade off, it's a hard one to begin with, but then folks have to answer to others, right?
Um, well, how much did you, did you buy new books for the, for the school? Did you buy online training stuff for the school? What's your view on that? And I don't know if you've heard any, any, any conversation or had a kind of conversation where they, people are trying to make this very difficult decision.
[00:16:37] Dror Liwer: Every day, especially when it comes down to mid market and small businesses, The reason we created a platform that covers practically everything they would need from a workspace security perspective was because what we've discovered was that they played what I like to call threat roulette, where basically they say, I only have this much budget that was given to me by the board of ed or by the, by the hospital or, and I was given this much budget.
I need to protect this organization as best as I can with this little budget. So I'm going to make my bets on where I think the bad guys are going to come from. And. And I'm going to buy a product and run a product in that space to try to protect that area, hoping that the attackers won't come through the back doors that I've left open, wide open.
Um, and the reason I call it Threat Roulette is because sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Uh, you know, sometimes you place the bets in the right location. And then sometimes an attacker comes in from an area you haven't expected and cripples a school, cripples a hospital, um, cripples a business, you know, and when you look at a mid market or a small business, um, an attack is an existential threat.
When you look at an enterprise, if they actually get breached, they have a team, they have a PR team that's going to deal with the aftermath, they have a legal team, they have insurance, they have a black team, they have a red team, they have a disaster recovery team, they have a crisis management team, they'll be okay.
When a small business gets hit, or a mid market business gets hit, and a logistics company can't move its trucks, or a small school can't issue, can't get their students into the school, that is detrimental, you know. And if you can't move your trucks for three, four days, Because ransomware crippled your servers and you don't know where to send them.
That's, that's the end of the business because your customers are not going to be too happy about that and they're not going to stick around. So these kinds of decisions are everyday decisions. And the reason we priced Quorl where we priced it was to remove that decision. You don't need to think about the cost because it's so affordable that you don't, no longer need to play the threat roulette.
You can get the entire coverage without worrying about it. But the whole concept of placing your bets on what area the attackers will come from is extremely common in mid market and small business. Because unlike the enterprise, they don't have the huge budgets. Go buy to your heart's content. We had a big, uh, uh, a CIO of one of the big banks in New York tell us that he doesn't have a cyber security problem, he has an imagination problem.
Anything he can imagine, he can go out and protect against. And my customer is completely not in that world.
[00:19:43] Sean Martin: They don't want to play at the high roller table. No, no, they can't. One bet and that's it. That's it. One bet and that's it. And no guarantee that they're safe anyway. Exactly. Well, Dror, it's always a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much for taking the time. It's great to see you here in London and I'm sure the folks here that run small and medium sized businesses are happy you're here as well.
Yes. And, uh, if you're here at InfoSecurity Europe for the final day Please do connect with Dror and the team. I'm serious when I say they're a fantastic crew, so come see the green shirts and the nice blue, super tall, multi screen booth that they built, which is pretty incredible.
[00:20:24] Dror Liwer: And if you can't make it to InfoSec in London, ....
Uh, check us out on our website, Koro.net.
[00:20:32] Sean Martin: Very good. Thanks everybody for watching and listening. And, uh, hopefully more from Koro. They're doing some really good stuff. So, uh, we'll catch you again, I think, maybe in Las Vegas. Maybe in Las Vegas. Maybe we'll see you there. Very good. Thanks everybody.