eWEEK is building a new IT products and services section that encompasses most of the categories that we cover on our site. In it, we will spotlight the leaders in each sector, which include enterprise software, hardware, security, on-premises-based systems and cloud services. We also will add promising new companies as they come into the market.
Today: Flashpoint Business Risk Intelligence (BRI)
Company description: Flashpoint delivers Business Risk Intelligence (BRI) to empower business units and functions across organizations with a decision advantage over potential threats and adversaries. The company’s sophisticated technology and human-powered analysis enable enterprises and public sector organizations globally to bolster cybersecurity, confront fraud, detect insider threats, enhance physical security, assess M&A opportunities and address vendor risk and supply-chain integrity.
Central to the company’s mission and offerings are its subject matter experts. With tradecraft skills honed over years spent operating in austere online environments and training with elite government and commercial organizations, the Flashpoint team covers 22 languages and has an intimate understanding of the numerous cultures and communities comprising the cyber and physical threat landscapes.
Co-founded in 2010 by Chief Executive Officer Josh Lefkowitz and Chief Innovation Officer Evan Kohlmann, Flashpoint is a private company headquartered in New York, N.Y., and Tysons Corner, Va., that employs nearly 200 people. It has received three rounds of financing totaling $43 million from investors Georgian partners, Greycroft Partners, TechOperators, K2 Intelligence, Jump Capital, Leaders Fund, Bloomberg Beta and Cisco Investments.
Markets & International Operations: Flashpoint is a global company with roots and local leadership based in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Product and Services: Flashpoint’s platform, API and tailored service offerings are fueled by the company’s Business Risk Intelligence (BRI), which broadens the scope of intelligence beyond threat detection in the cyber domain to provide relevant context to all business units across an enterprise.
Key Features:
Flashpoint Intelligence Platform: The Flashpoint Intelligence Platform grants access to the company’s expansive archive of Finished Intelligence reports, Deep & Dark Web data, and Risk Intelligence Observables in a single, finished intelligence experience.
Flashpoint API: The Flashpoint API provides near real-time access to each of the company’s datasets. By integrating into end-users’ existing systems and supporting Technology Partner integrations, the API enables customers to enhance their internal data with Flashpoint’s data acquired from highly curated sources.
Flashpoint Collaboration (FPCollab): Exclusively comprising Flashpoint customers and team members, FPCollab is an information-sharing community that equips its more than 1,000 members with trusted, timely insights and live communication to facilitate more effective decisions around risk.
Flashpoint Intelligence Academy (FIA): The FIA curriculum educates users on the BRI methodology, focusing on how to leverage intelligence enterprise-wide to more effectively mitigate risk. As a result, security teams better understand threats, prioritize responses, make more informed decisions, and develop and drive BRI applications across the business.
Flashpoint Professional Services (FPS): The FPS portfolio comprises a series of customized services designed to help organizations reduce the challenges faced by overwhelmed or under-resourced business risk functions to accelerate growth in capability and efficiency for new or expanding teams.
List of current customers: Customers include leading commercial and public-sector organizations glogally, such as William Hill, Aflac and Facebook, as well as nine of the top 10 global financial institutions, three of the top five health-care providers, four of the top 10 global retailers, and four of the top 10 global telecom providers.
Delivery: Flashpoint’s technology offerings are delivered as software-as-a-service or API. The company’s tailored services, including Flashpoint Intelligence Academy and Flashpoint Professional Services, are delivered via remote or onsite sessions based on the extent of the engagement and customer needs.
Pricing: Pricing varies across offerings and according to customer needs. For more information, contact Flashpoint at [email protected], 1-888-468-3598, or on Twitter via @FlashpointIntel.
Insight and Analysis: Flashpoint illuminates the Deep and Dark Web. A pioneer in providing intelligence from these regions of the Internet, Flashpoint’s software and data services help companies, governments, and consumers enhance their cyber and physical security. The company’s unique blend of subject matter expertise and software engineering has changed the way meaningful and actionable intelligence is gleaned from the previously unmapped regions of the Internet.
BRI broadens the scope of cyber intelligence beyond threat detection to provide relevant context to business units not traditionally afforded the benefits of intelligence viewed only by cybersecurity or security operations teams. This expansion of intelligence can help organizations address a myriad of potential issues, including insider threat, fraud, third-party risk, executive and employee protection, physical security, M&A integrity, money laundering, and, of course, traditional cybersecurity and incident response.
“Some threat intelligence solutions can be no different than URL filtering, merely contributing to the greater noise. Instead, good threat intelligence solutions are customized and able to deliver a high-confidence alert to initiate an actionable response. Peering out at what often looks like a world of shadows and hostility, security teams can see specificity as a key to the achievement of their best success with limited resources.” —Gartner Research Vice President Greg Young.
Users in enterprises of all sizes and maturities and across all business functions and use cases can improve their decision-making abilities using this toolset. It includes:
Pro: Customizable BRI Dashboard: The “onboarding wizard” allows for quick customization to industry, region, category, and threat target access. It’s a finished intelligence experience to help organizations make more informed decision.
Pro: Intelligence-to-Data Pivoting:Browse or query reports then click directly into a sanitized copy of the original threat actor conversation. Assess emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and potential impacts to accurately and make effective risk decisions.
Pro: Tagging and Content Classification: The Flashpoint Intelligence Platform features optimized intelligence and report tagging and classification that improves report searching and discovery. Users can simply investigate BRI reports, including cybercrime intelligence, physical threat intelligence, and sanitized searching of the Deep & Dark Web, and easily gain a deep contextual understanding of the threats that matter to them the most.
Pro: Here is a typical yearly review of Business Risk Intelligence as compiled by Flashpoint.
Con: Can be a bit pricey. Some people have found the UI a little hard to use.
Other key players in this market:
Flashpoint’s main competitors deal with threat intelligence and digital risk monitoring and include Recorded Future, Digital Shadows, Intel471, CrowdStrike, Cisco FireEye and IntSights.
Contact information for potential customers:
- www.flashpoint-intel.com
- [email protected]
- 1-888-468-3598
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