KnowBe4 marks its entry into the Cybersecurity 500 with continuous growth for an 11th quarter in a row.
(Tampa Bay, FL) April 4, 2016--KnowBe4, the United States’ most popular integrated platform for security awareness training and simulated phishing tests, announced it attained a top spot (#220) in the Cybersecurity 500, the definitive list of the world’s hottest and most innovative companies in the cybersecurity industry. Supporting this achievement, KnowBe4 celebrated its record setting 11th straight quarter of triple digit growth (299%) Q1 2016 over Q1 2015. Fueling this growth is the strong demand for its innovative Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training,
KnowBe4 helps IT departments to better manage the worsening problem of social engineering by training employees to recognize phishing red flags. IT pros can use the robust KnowBe4 platform to send frequent simulated phishing emails to end-users who can be given several types of remedial training. Employees can also use KnowBe4’s free Phish Alert Button for Outlook to send any suspicious email to their Incident Response team for follow up. Thousand of organization use KnowBe4 to create an additional “human firewall” layer of defense which contributes to a strong security culture.
“With the recent ransomware epidemic causing sleepless nights for IT security and boards alike, IT pros don’t have the luxury of using complicated training methods,” said KnowBe4 CEO Stu Sjouwerman. “Designed ‘by admins, for admins’, KnowBe4’s platform simply works. IT managers are grateful, because they are recognized as helpful coworkers rather than the network police,” noted Sjouwerman. “Our new-school security awareness program creates cooperation and an overall improvement in security. We attribute the Cybersecurity 500 recognition and our growth to the fact we understand what threats IT faces and our team helps them manage these problems.”
Steve Morgan, founder and CEO at Cybersecurity Ventures, and Editor-In-Chief of the Cybersecurity 500 explained on the Cybersecurity 500 website, ““We continuously look at thousands of companies for inclusion in the Cybersecurity 500, by soliciting feedback from CISOs, IT security practitioners and service providers, and researching hundreds of cybersecurity events and news sources that we follow. The Cybersecurity 500 does not rank companies by revenues, employees, or annual growth. They already know who the biggest vendors are. Instead, we give a nod to the hottest and most innovative companies.”
Sjouwerman said, “Business are losing billions of dollars annually due to social engineering attacks such as ransomware and scams like the Business Email Compromise (BEC), not to mention the countless millions lost to downtime. These types of threats have helped propel the need for a better way to manage the problem of social engineering.”
“Risk managers know it is far cheaper to train users than pay the fines and heavy costs associated with a data breach, estimated by Juniper Networks to account for $2.1 trillion dollars by 2019,” noted Sjouwerman.
Lloyd’s of London estimated cybercrime costs businesses as much as $400 billion a year, a staggering amount by any standard. This doesn’t take into account hacks and breaches that are unregulated and unreported.
"People are used to having a technology solution [but] social engineering bypasses all technologies, including firewalls. Technology is critical, but we have to look at people and processes. Social engineering is a form of hacking that uses influence tactics," said KnowBe4’s Chief Hacking Officer Kevin Mitnick.
For more information, visit www.KnowBe4.com
About Stu Sjouwerman and KnowBe4
Stu Sjouwerman (pronounced “shower-man”) is the founder and CEO of KnowBe4, Inc., which hosts the world’s most popular integrated Security Awareness Training and Simulated Phishing platform. A data security expert with more than 30 years in the IT industry, Sjouwerman was the co-founder of Inc. 500 company Sunbelt Software, a multiple award-winning, anti-malware software company that was acquired in 2010. Realizing that the human element of security
was being seriously neglected, Sjouwerman decided to help organizations manage the problem of cybercrime social engineering tactics through new school security awareness training.
Thousands of organizations, in a variety of industries, including highly-regulated fields, such as healthcare, finance, energy, government, and insurance have mobilized their end users as a first line of defense using KnowBe4. Sjouwerman is the author of four books, with his latest being
“Cyberheist: The Biggest Financial Threat Facing American Businesses.” For more information, visit www.knowbe4.com and follow @StuAllard on Twitter.
About Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick, ‘the World’s Most Famous Hacker’, is an internationally recognized computer security expert with extensive experience in exposing the vulnerabilities of complex operating systems and telecom devices. He gained notoriety as a highly skilled hacker who penetrated some of the most resilient computer systems ever developed. Today, Mitnick is renowned as an information security consultant and keynote speaker and has authored four books, including The New York Times best seller Ghost in the Wires. His latest endeavor is a collaboration with KnowBe4, LLC as its Chief Hacking Officer.
