Tag: SecureWorks

Secureworks decimates staff

Posted on February 14, 2023 by - News

Cybersecurity firm Secureworks has become a somewhat insecure place to work.

The outfit has told employees is cutting more than nine per cent of its workforce after its majority-owner Dell Technologies announced a round of layoffs.

Secureworks last disclosed its employee headcount in a regulatory filing in March 2022, when it said that it had 2,351 employees as of January 28, 2022.

If its staff size has remained similar, the nine per cent workforce reduction will affect more than 200 Secureworks employees.

Dell announced layoffs affecting 6,650 employees, or about five per cent of its staff. Dell owned approximately 82.7 per cent of outstanding shares in Secureworks as of the end of October, according to an SEC filing.

Secureworks wants a “channel first” approach

Posted on December 13, 2022 by - News

Secureworks has announced that it is pursuing a channel-first strategy and building relationships with partners and distributors.

The security outfit was once an MSSP, then became an XDR specialist with a threat intelligence system that could update its defences in real-time.

Secureworks EMEA sales boss Simon Moor said that it had become clear to the firm that a channel-first approach is the key to widening its reach and growing market share.

Tech Data partners with Secureworks

Posted on May 13, 2021 by - News

Tech Data today announced an agreement with Secureworks to make the cloud-native Secureworks Taegis portfolio available to Tech Data partners across Europe.

Securework’s Taegis platform unifies detection and response across endpoint, network and cloud environments. The solution leverages advanced analytics and community-applied intelligence – powered by AI-based detection and findings from 1400+ incident response engagements – to detect, investigate and respond to cyberattacks

David Ellis, vice president, cybersecurity and mobility, Europe at Tech Data said: “’Today’s complex environments have increased risks for end-users across the cloud, network and endpoint. In addition, the well-publicised cyber skills shortage makes management of this area difficult for customers. We believe the Taegis XDR platform can help MSPs, MSSPs and resellers manage threats far more effectively for their clients. It also creates a very profitable and differentiated cybersecurity service offering, resulting in very sticky and close customer relationships. We are very excited to work with Secureworks to take these solutions to the European market.”

Secureworks launches a performance related partner programme

Posted on May 25, 2020 by - News

Cyber security outfit Secureworks has a  new performance-based partner programme without quotas which it promises will do the magic without tiers. Or tears.

The Global Partner Programme, which replaces the existing Partner Select Programme, will base partner benefits on competencies and performance levels.

Maureen Perrelli, chief channel officer said the goal was to make things as simple as possible and the idea was backed by partners.

“We purposefully chose not to introduce traditional compliance-based, tier-based programme structures. Instead, we are using a performance-based model. To that end, the more partners achieve with us, the more benefits they will earn”, he said.

Dell boosts security portfolio

Posted on February 4, 2019 by - News

Dell is working with CrowdStrike and SecureWorks to offer enterprises access to endpoint security for digital transformation.

Dell’s new AI-driven and cloud-native  SafeGuard and Response platform contain tools that help businesses analyse threats and respond to security incidents on a single managed platform.

It is all powered by CrowdStrike, SecureWorks’ threat intelligence and response management and Dell’s wants to flog an all-in-one threat protection product for all businesses.

Dell’s SecureWorks should get a $1.42 billion IPO

Posted on April 12, 2016 by - News

michael-dell-2Dell’s cyber security unit, SecureWorks, could be valued at up to $1.42 billion in its initial public offering, the first major US listing of a technology company this year.

SecureWorks said its offering was expected to be priced at $15.50-$17.50 per Class A share, raising as much as $157.5 million.

It is not the greatest time for SecureWorks to launch. IPO values plunged to a seven-year low in the first quarter, more than halving from a year earlier to $106.6 billion, as worries over slowing economic growth kept investors wary.

However as far as shareholders in SecureWorks are concerned, from such a low base, things can only get better.

Several cyber security firms such as FireEye, Rapid7 and Mimecast have gone public to take advantage of growing investor interest in them after a spate of hacking attacks on companies including major banks and retailers.

However, shares of Rapid7 and FireEye are now trading way below their IPO prices. Mimecast, which jumped 20 percent on its listing day, has also slipped below its offering price.

The Wall Street Journal first reported in October that Dell, the third-largest personal computer maker, had filed confidentially for listing SecureWorks, which it bought for $612 million in 2011.

Founded in 1999, SecureWorks has 4,200 clients in 59 countries.

 

Skeleton Key exposes password flaws

Posted on January 14, 2015 by - News

skeletonsSecureWorks, the security arm of Dell, has found malware which it has dubbed “Skeleton Key” which shows up weaknesses in the password system.

The attack consists of installing rogue software within Active Directory, and the malware then allows attackers to login as any user on the domain without the need for further authentication.

It has weaknesses as an attack vector — installation requires administrator access or a flaw on the server that grants such access.

But Skeleton Key has some interesting coding which could point to something even nastier in the future. It does not actually install itself on the filesystem. Instead, it’s an in-memory patch of Active Directory which makes detection even more difficult.

Access is not logged and the malware is completely silent and, as a result, extremely undetectable. Identifying the malware using traditional network monitoring also does not work due to the fact that Skeleton Key does not generate any network traffic.

In its current form, the malware does not survive a system reboot, which means that it has to be a continuous hack, but such things are possible, particularly if you have a disgruntled sysadmin.
Companies can also make the malware useless by having a two-factor authentication to connect to servers, VPN, email and the like. So in otherwords leaning on passwords is pretty much suicide.