Crowdstrike CEO On Rethinking Endpoint Security Strategy

Companies need to start looking at endpoint security differently, as network security measures and traditional antivirus and endpoint technology simply aren't cutting it anymore. That was the message from Crowdstrike CEO George Kurtz in a recent interview with ITbestofbreed.com.

Crowdstrike is fresh off of a $100 million Series C funding round, led by Google Capital, and is taking the next-generation endpoint security market by storm. The company's cloud-based Falcon Host platform offers a new take on endpoint security that uses behavioral technology to focus on "indicators of attack" instead of "indicators of compromise."

Take a look at what Kurtz had to say about the company's growth post-funding and why he thinks companies need to rethink their approach to endpoint security.

How is everything going post funding?

We've had great feedback and a lot of validation from customers and a lot of interest. There's a lot of inbounds now from channel partners and folks that aren't necessarily part of our partner program, but with all the awareness and announcements there's people coming in and trying to register a deal. We're just seeing a lot more activity, which is great.

How are you handling that increase in demand? What's your structure for bringing in more partners?

We hired Jody Len, who ran channels at Watchdox and she also was an executive at Websense, [as senior director of worldwide channels.] We continue to build out that program with channel account managers and continue to mature our focus on how we go to market with channel partners. We work with mostly the big [security solution proivders] right now...The inbounds from what we're seeing are regionalized groups, which is nice. We didn't necessarily have that reach or touch before, but they're seeing localized deals and reaching out to us to figure out how they can be part of the partner program just given the interest they're seeing from customers.

How does your program work with MSPs?

We're really in the early stages. We're finalizing some of the other deals that we have. The general idea is that they will be able to offer that to their customers. There's a certain segment of customers that we're not going to be able to reach, in terms of their size, but they still are going to need our technology and services...With the managed service companies, they have a lot more reach into those smaller companies and that's where we're going to go to market with them.

Have you seen a lot more competition up and coming into this next-generation endpoint space?

It's an interesting question. When you think of advanced threats, a lot of people went to the network first – the FireEye's of the world. They're now realizing some of the limitations...We had the foresight to figure out that next-generation endpoint is going to be a big deal. That's what we started doing in 2011. We are seeing a lot more competition in the market.

What sets you apart from these competitors?

There are two big areas that we focus on. One is the cloud architecture. We're really the only guys that have that unique architecture for next-gen endpoint. Everything is delivered from the cloud except for the only thing that runs locally is a lightweight sensor that runs on the endpoint for both the Mac. Windows and Linux world...That is one area. Then, we crowdsource and get telemetry from the endpoint...The community immunity aspect is a big differentiator because most of our competitors are all on premise and they're disconnected, so they can't see what's happening in the whole population. The other area is what I would call the pure detection, prevention components. Ours is more behavioral – we call it "indicators of attack" as opposed to an "indicator of compromise," like a Mandiant product or Bit9. Behaviorally, we look for actions that, even without signatures we know are bad.