SentinelOne Launches Partner-Ready Program Guaranteeing Its Endpoint Security Foils Ransomware Attacks

In most other industries, if you aren’t satisfied with a product you can return it for a money-back guarantee. That hasn’t been the case in security in years past, but SentinelOne is now looking to change that with the launch of a new threat protection guarantee program for ransomware attacks.

The new threat protection guarantee program will allow partners to guarantee SentinelOne’s endpoint security solution up to $1 million. If the vendor is unable to block or remediate a ransomware attack, the company will provide support of up to $1,000 per endpoint, up to $1 million.

"This really is a gutsy move by SentinelOne, underlining the confidence in their next-generation endpoint solution,’ said Hadas Hughes, group director of marketing and communications at Exclusive Networks, in an email.

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To get the guarantee, which is available through partners, customers will pay the normal licensing fee for the product with an added small premium. For partners, that means a way to differentiate their offerings and guarantee that the vendor is willing to ’put its money where our mouth is,’ Jeremiah Grossman, chief of security strategy at SentinelOne, said.

’It’s a tool in [reseller’s] tool chests,’ Grossman said. ’It’s a way for them to differentiate our product from the competition. We’ll line up our products and our stories [against the competition] and one guarantees it and the other ones don’t.’

The guarantee stands up against a very real and rising problem in the security industry – with $209 million paid out to ransomware attacks in the first quarter of 2016, according to Gartner. That is up from $24 million in all of 2015.

Exclusive Networks’ Hughes said the guarantee breathes fresh life into the endpoint security market, providing ’heightened awareness’ and ’opportunity’ for partners around the technology.

’This is the end of endpoint as we know it, and laggards will still be living in the past day while pioneers will be at the frontier of a sustainable business opportunity,’ Hughes said.

While the current guarantee only protects against ransomware infections, Grossman said SentinelOne will evaluate making it ’bigger and better’ down the road, including adding coverage of different types of malware and richer guarantees based on the value of the data.

Grossman said he hopes the launch will kick start a movement in the security industry to take more accountability for the effectiveness of its products.

’It’s my deep wish that the industry adopt this model because the longer we wait, the more snake oil gets away with it,’ Grossman said. ’I want people to know it’s okay to ask for these things from their security vendors…It can be done.’