Security Analytics Vendor Interset Inks Deal With Branch Of Lockheed Martin

User behavior analytics (UBA) platform vendor Interset has signed a partnership deal with the information security unit of aerospace powerhouse Lockheed Martin, Interset announced Monday.

Lockheed’s commercial cyber group will resell Interset’s UBA platform to its customers as part of Lockheed’s current security portfolio, enabling clients to automate the time-consuming process of searching through false positives to identify new threats, according to Mark Bennett, Interset’s vice president of business development.

The partnership, Bennett said, was pulled together in only 90 days – which Bennett said was short – which is why it resembles a reseller agreement, although he said it marks the start of a relationship he’s confident will grow much stronger. Bennett also said this deal is Lockheed's only UBA vendor agreement.

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"This deal is a validation of our capability" and will introduce Interset to Lockheed's customer base of Fortune 1000 and global 1000 businesses, said Bennett, who called the deal a significant addition to Interset’s current roster of 12 reseller partners.

"[Lockheed's clients] are really large companies - it is a tremendous route to market for us … We see Lockheed as a very strategic partner," he said.

The alliance is beneficial to both Interset and partners looking for a UBA solution, Bennett said.

As the UBA market becomes more competitive and increasingly popular with end users, more companies are looking for help in weeding out false positives from their security alerts, a time-consuming, manual process that holds IT organizations back from reacting to real threats that could compromise the security of a company, Bennett said.

Another Interset partner welcomed the deal.

’This deal solidifies Interset as a player in the ’solving the insider threat’ space, … It is a good deal for them,’ said Bill Silver, founder and president of Interset partner NuTech Integrated Systems of New York.

Silver said Interset is now cemented as one of the top players in the UBA space. ’I think it moves them to the upper right-hand quadrant in the space," he said, referring to industry analyst graphics that position leading companies in the upper right. "If people are thinking of using UBA they have to take a look at Interset,’ he said.

Interset's UBA solution tracks and analyzes user activity, flagging inconsistencies and automating the process of sorting through terabytes of data to correctly identify real inside security threats.

Silver said Interset was an early player in the space, which gave it more time to hone its solution and make it one of the top UBA solutions. ’It works, it just works,’ he said.

Interset's platform stands apart from many other UBA platforms in three ways, Bennet said.

First, he said, is that the platform was built on open-source Hadoop architecture, which allows the platform to scale and scan billions of transactions per minute. It also allows the platform to be deployed in a Software-as-a-Service model across on-premise hardware as well as private and public clouds.

Second, Bennett said, the platform is multi-tenant, which allows different groups within a company to view information specific to their groups, while a third set of eyes can view all information across the entire business, all in real time.

Finally, Bennett said the Interset solution is a true ’plug and play’ technology, arguing that while many of the company's competitors claim to have that capability, only a handful actually do.

Interset’s platform can be activated immediately after installation and be retroactively fed a month’s worth of user activity data, allowing it to establish a baseline of normal behavior instead of taking time to accumulate that data.

That’s why Interset was chosen as part of Lockheed's portfolio, Bennett said. "This deal is a tremendous value-add for us and it is a real perfect match with the technology and industry expertise that Lockheed brings."

The Lockheed deal is the second of two large partnerships that Interset has announced this month. The other involved the not-for-profit, strategic investor In-Q-Tel, the Arlington, Va.-based venture capital firm that invests in companies with cutting edge technologies that can assist the U.S. intelligence community. Through that deal In-Q-Tel will invest and assist in developing Interset's products so its solutions can better support U.S. intelligence agencies.

That deal is one that Bennett said he hopes will bring Interset to the front of the line in the minds of clients. In-Q-Tel has invested in big security names such as ArcSight in 2002 and FireEye in 2010, both of which have since become big players in the security space.

For Interset, the In-Q-Tel investment helps move it into the government space, but is also another nod to the value of the company's product.

Bennett said Interset will continue working with channel partners to sell its platform. He said the company is adding partners and wants to add more.

"This is a space is in an emerging area, and we need trusted advisors that are in a position now to understand what customers are asking for,’ Bennett said. ’We are looking to recruit really good VARs with a trusted advisor relationship; partners that are going to their customer base thinking about the insider threat - true value-added reselling.’