10 Security Vendors Making Moves At Black Hat 2024

In addition to major product launches, cybersecurity vendors also announced fundings, acquisitions and key hires this week in Las Vegas.

Big Moves At Black Hat

Along with an abundance of product launches this week in Las Vegas, numerous cybersecurity vendors have announced other major moves in connection with the Black Hat 2024 conference.

Security giant Fortinet, for instance, announced a notable startup acquisition, while Abnormal Security disclosed a massive funding round and plans to pursue an IPO by the end of next year.

[Related: 10 Hot Security Tools Unveiled At Black Hat 2024]

Meanwhile, major product debuts from companies including SentinelOne, Check Point and Huntress have been announced this week, while other vendors disclosed key hires and details on strong business momentum.

What follows are the biggest details to know on 10 security vendors making moves at Black Hat 2024.

Abnormal Security Raises $250M In Funding, Pledges Channel Investments

AI-powered cybersecurity vendor Abnormal Security announced raising a Series D funding round $250 million at a $5.1 billion valuation. In an interview with CRN, Abnormal Security Co-founder and CEO Evan Reiser said a major focus for the new funding will be around investments in enabling channel partners, which he described as “incredibly important in this age of AI.” The company also plans to use the funding infusion to advance its cybersecurity platform powered by behavioral AI technologies and work toward going public by the fourth quarter of 2025, Reiser (pictured) told CRN. “We started with an email security company, we became a Microsoft and Google security company,” he said. “Now we're going to expand to [secure] all cloud applications.”

Fortinet Acquires Data Security Startup

Fortinet on Tuesday announced it’s looking to bolster its SASE platform with the acquisition of data security startup Next DLP. The startup offers a platform for spotting insider risk while also detecting exfiltration of data and data loss, using a software agent that delivers a minimal impact to CPU performance and worker productivity. In a news release, Fortinet CEO Ken Xie said that integrating Next DLP will “significantly strengthen our data loss prevention capabilities,” with benefits including better enablement for customers around management of insider risk. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Also during Black Hat 2024, Fortinet debuted major updates to what it called the “most comprehensive” operational technology (OT) security platform in the industry. The updates to Fortinet’s OT Security Platform include improved identification of assets, an expansion of capabilities for virtual patching and enhanced remote access.

SentinelOne Launches Singularity Updates

During Black Hat 2024 this week, SentinelOne announced several major product moves including general availability for its Singularity MDR (managed detection and response) offering. The MDR platform leverages SentinelOne’s Vigilance MDR offering as well as its WatchTower threat hunting service and DFIR (digital forensics and incident response) services. The Singularity MDR ultimately provides “end-to-end managed protection across the entire enterprise environment” on a 24/7 basis, SentinelOne said. The security vendor also said its Singularity MDR + DFIR has launched in general availability.

Meanwhile, SentinelOne announced other updates to its Singularity platform including with the debut of new GenAI-powered alert summaries, along with expanded alert query support, with its Purple AI offering. Additionally, the vendor expanded its capabilities in cloud security (with cloud infrastructure entitlement management or CIEM) now available and introduced increased visibility for its endpoint security and identity protection tools.

Huntress Rolls Out Managed SIEM

In connection with Black Hat, Huntress unveiled its new managed SIEM offering that aims to be a less-complicated and more-affordable alternative focused on the unique needs of MSPs and their SMB customers, according to Huntress Co-founder and CTO Chris Bisnett. Key differentiators for the Huntress managed SIEM offering include using highly efficient data collection and retention techniques to keep costs predictable and minimal, which is crucial for service providers, he said. “It allows us to just drop out significant amounts of data that ultimately has little to no security relevance,” Bisnett said. According to one MSP and Huntress partner, the expansion by the vendor into SIEM is a welcome move, which is seeing Huntress bring the same streamlined approach to SIEM that it has previously to endpoint and Microsoft 365 security. The Huntress SIEM provides “one central location where we can calculate and collect a lot of our security data and metrics,” said Marcel Pawloswski, security engineer at Microtime Computers, an Andover, Mass.-based MSP.

Check Point Announces Several New Product Capabilities

At Black Hat 2024, Check Point unveiled early availability access for its new Harmony DLP (data loss prevention) service, which extends the security vendor’s DLP capabilities to endpoints. The offering is differentiated through its ability to analyze unstructured data for sensitive content and risks, in addition to structured data, the company said. Meanwhile, Check Point also debuted new capabilities for its Infinity ThreatCloud AI system, including the new ThreatCloud Graph engine for enhanced prevention of emerging threats. Additionally, Check Point unveiled new capabilities for discovery and assessment of GenAI usage across an organization, in order to help with understanding what generative AI applications are in use and whether unsanctioned “shadow GenAI” is occurring, the company said.

Safe Security Hires Channel Chief

Cyber risk management vendor Safe Security announced security veteran Michael Nagao as its channel chief. Nagao, who will serve as senior vice president of worldwide channel sales and alliances, was most recently area vice president for Americas channel at data security firm Rubrik, which competed its IPO in April. Nagao is charged with expanding Safe Security’s “100-percent channel-first” business, the company said in a news release. Nagao (pictured) said in the release that Safe Security channel partners have a “significant opportunity to establish themselves with the SAFE One Platform as trusted consultants to the CISO.” In the role, he will “elevate Safe Security's channel strategy” as part of accelerating growth at the company, according to the release.

Additional Channel Moves

At Black Hat this week, attack surface management vendor Ionix unveiled its new partner program and announced the hire of Paul Vick, formerly a cybersecurity partner manager at Cisco, as director of North American channels. Ionix also launched a new MSSP portal, which serves as a centralized, multi-tenant platform designed for monitoring and management of external attack surfaces, according to the vendor.

Grip Security, an identity risk management startup focused on SaaS, also announced a new channel move with the debut of a partnership with cybersecurity powerhouse GuidePoint Security. The partnership will combine GuidePoint’s identity governance expertise with Grip’s technology, ultimately delivering advisory services “to effectively mitigate risk and enforce strong IGA policies,” Grip said in a news release.

Armis Announces $200M ARR

Asset intelligence and security vendor Armis disclosed that it recently surpassed $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR). That’s double the $100 million in ARR that the company had reported in February 2023. The growth makes Armis “one of just a few companies that have achieved this rapid scale, not just in the cyber security market, but of any SaaS company worldwide,” the company said in a news release. The disclosure also shows Armis’ momentum as it continues to prepare for an eventual IPO, the vendor said in the release.

Major Industry Partnerships, Integrations Announced

At Black Hat 2024, data security firm Rubrik announced it has teamed up with cybersecurity powerhouse Mandiant to launch a new partnership focused on improving customers’ cybersecurity resilience. The partnership between Rubrik, a fast-growing company that completed its IPO in April, and Google Cloud-owned Mandiant will also include a technology integration that will see Mandiant Threat Intelligence tied into Rubrik’s Threat Monitoring offering. Additionally, the new partnership will focus on expediting incident response to cyberattacks, with the companies committing to “bring together their respective Ransomware Response and Incident Response teams to provide victims with additional investigative and recovery support,” according to a news release.

Other top industry players that announced new partnerships and integrations included Trend Micro, which unveiled an integration with Nvidia AI Enterprise, as well as a new partnership between Securonix and Cribl that will focus on enabling “a broader range of enterprise data [to be] analyzed for AI-powered attacks,” the companies said.

More Product Announcements

A number of other notable product announcements were unveiled Wednesday. Those included: