2011 Need To Know: Security Vendors

Channel Opportunity Abounds IT Security

Despite the advances that have been made in information security, securing networks and boosting data protection is getting more difficult, not less. And cybercriminals are getting more targeted in their attacks, focusing on finding holes through new technology such as smartphones and social networks.

For VARs looking to expand their offerings, they should look no further than the IT security space. Access control systems, data protection and unified threat management solutions are all technologies that VARs can sell as software, appliances and cloud offerings. This Need To Know list offers you the vendors and their channel chiefs to contact if you want to expand your portfolio or are just starting out in the market.

AVG Technology

Channel Chief: Mike LaPeters

AVG offers a variety of detection methods for protecting end points and networks, including, signatures-, polymorphic-, heuristic- and behavior-based detection. The company recently unveiled cloud-based protection as well as protection for community and social networks.

Barracuda

Channel Chief: Michael Hughes

Barracuda recently emerged as a strong player in SaaS with the acquisition of PureWire. The company delivers content security, data protection and application delivery solutions and protects against Web, IM and e-mail threats as well as offering message archiving and backup.

BitDefender

Channel Chief: Keith Alston

Romanian security vendor BitDefender has been a provider of antivirus and security suite solutions with its BitDefender Total Security. A new partnership with BitTorrent will bolster its offering and provide opportunities for the channel.

Blue Coat Systems

Channel Chief: Jim Harold

Since today's workforce is more mobile and distributed, Blue Coat’s Application Delivery network focuses on securing the flow of information. The combination of its application performance monitoring, WAN optimization and secure gateway technologies protects and prioritizes application and access control.

CA, Internet Security Business Unit

Channel Chief: George Kafkarkou

CA has built up a steady stream of security products through acquisitions. From its CA Identity Manager, to Enterprise Log Manager, Arcot Web Content Aware, SiteMinder, CA DLP, CA Total Defense, CA offers soup-to-nuts security.

Check Point

Channel Chief: Annon Bar-Lev

As an industry pioneer for firewalls, stateful inspection and VPNs, Check Point continues to innovate with its software blade architecture while its application intelligence detects application-level attacks and its network access control technology offers endpoint protection.

Cisco

Channel Chief: Jim Sheriff

As the de facto leader in network infrastructure and armed with a formidable channel, Cisco has also become a serious security competitor. It has integrated security functionality into its self-defending network, with firewall, VPN, IPS and e-mail security technologies.

ESET

Channel Chief: Matthew McManus

With its research center and global headquarters in Slovakia, ESET offers best-of-breed threat detection. Its flagship products, ESET NOD32 Antivirus and ESET Smart Security, are leaders in proactive threat detection and the company recently introduced cloud security offerings.

Fortinet

Channel Chief: Kendra Krause

A leader in unified threat management offering network security appliances, Fortinet has built its go-to-market strategy with the channel. In recent months Fortinet has been rumored to be an acquisition target as large vendors, such as IBM, build out their security portfolio.

F-Secure

Channel Chief: Jeremy Merrick

The Finnish company was one of the first vendors to protect mobile devices and pioneered the ’Software as a Service’ business model in the industry. Today it is a go-to vendor for the service provider space and offers its F-Secure Internet Security, Client Security and F-Secure Online Backup, among other products, to customers.

HP/3Com/Tipping Point

Channel Chief: Anthony D'Angelo

As part of its $2.17B acquisition of 3Com, HP absorbed TippingPoint and its enterprise-class intrusion prevention systems and security management platform that provides administration, configuration, monitoring and reporting against threats and attacks.

Juniper

Channel Chief: Steve Pataky

Building off its networking expertise, Juniper offers the channel a bevy of security offerings that compete with security-only vendors. From SSL VPN appliances to IPSes, IDSes, gateways and Netscreen security appliances, Juniper has a full lineup for the channel.

Kaspersky Lab

Channel Chief: Nancy Reynolds

This 14-year-old security veteran has taken on some of the largest security vendors and uses the channel to evangelize its message. Its products include applications for the protection of file servers and data storage, e-mail servers, workstations, laptops, as well as smartphones.

McAfee

Channel Chief: Alex Thurber

The long-standing security behemoth was gobbled up by Intel last year for $7.68 billion. It promises to bring security functionality into the Intel fold and offer technology that could help better secure mobile and wireless devices and integrate security into chipsets that power everything from ATMs to automobiles.

Microsoft

Channel Chief: Jerry Bryant

The perennial favorite among hackers, Microsoft has built up a formidable research team and patch disclosure process with its monthly Patch Tuesdays. On the product side it also offers end-to-end security and access control with its Forefront Protection Server Management Console and its endpoint protection suite.

M86 Security

Channel Chief: John Notham

Through its acquisition of Marshal and Finjan, M86 offers realtime Web and e-mail threat protection through a hybrid approach of premise and off-premise solutions. With its Secure Web Gateway flagship product, VARs can sell a hardware appliance, and its outlying branches and remote workers use itss cloud services.

Novell

Channel Chief: John Dragoon

With its heritage in networks and directories, Novell is king when it comes to access control. Its security offerings solve customer problems including compliance, identity and access and security management. With the recent acquisition by Attachmate’s, Novell’s non-Linux solutions will be a business division within Attachmate.

Qualys

Channel Chief: Terry Ramos

Qualys has been on the forefront of managed security services for more than a decade. It offers a bevy of hosted and on-demand solutions including vulnerability management, policy compliance, Web application scanning and malware detection for clients both large and small.

RSA, the Security Division of EMC

Channel Chief: Bill Taylor

RSA is synonymous with the annual must-attend RSA security conference and its SecurID authentication technology. Its solutions include functionality such as access control, fraud prevention, data loss prevention, encryption and key management and security information event management.

SonicWall

Channel Chief: Marvin Blough

SonicWall has relied on the channel to sell its complete line of products, which includes unified threat management devices, VPNs, e-mail security and backup and recovery products. Its wired and wireless solutions are deployed in SMBs, enterprises, government, retail and health-care markets.

Sophos

Channel Chief: Matt Fogelgren

Sophos offers solutions that defend against known and unknown malware, spyware, intrusions, spam and data leakage. From endpoint to e-mail security to encryption and Web security, their products help determine who can and should have access to the network and what permissions are necessary.

Symantec

Channel Chief: Randy Cochran

Since 1982 Symantec has been protecting networks starting with its Norton utilities. From its response and research team, Symantec is ahead of the threats and offers solutions for security, compliance, storage and availability management as well as hosted services, building on its acquisition of MessageLabs.

Trend Micro

Channel Chief: Stephen Mungall

This $1 billion-plus antivirus security company has been a pioneer in the SaaS space with the launch of its Smart Protection network and entered the virtualization space with a virtualized Web Security gateway.

Watchguard Technology

Channel Chief: Mark Romano

The network security vendor offers solutions that combine firewall, VPN and security services to protect against spam, viruses, malware and intrusions. Its XCS appliances offer content security with e-mail, Web and data loss prevention technology.

Websense

Channel Chief: Kurt Mills

A leader in Web, data and e-mail content security, Websense delivers its solutions through the channel as software, appliances and Security-as-a Service. Its tools help customers collaborate safely and protect against persistent threats and the loss of confidential information.

Webroot

Channel Chief: Jerry Jalaba

Webroot released on-demand Web, e-mail and archiving products hosted in the cloud. The companyalso unleashed dozens of enhancements to its business Web security service, while unveiling new security services to help businesses with e-discovery and compliance initiatives.

Want to know which resellers are making waves in the IT security space? Check out CRN's 2011 Need To Know: Security VARs.