Red Canary has typically worked with Incident Response partners in the past, but the new Red Canary Partner Connect Program also provides support, using a common framework, for MSPs, Solution Providers; Technology Partners, and Insurance and Risk partners.
Craig Halliwell, VP of Channel and Partnerships at Red Canary
Today, Managed Detection and Response [MDR] pioneer Red Canary has announced the launch of Red Canary Partner Connect, a new partner program that expands support to cover a much fuller range of channel partners than Red Canary has worked with historically.
Red Canary was founded in 2013, and came to market with an MDR solution from its inception.
“We were the original MDR company,” said Craig Halliwell, VP of Channel and Partnerships at Red Canary. “We originally worked with Carbon Black, and we ingested their data as our first EDR partner. Since then, we have added others, and we now have over 1000 customers.
“Our distinction in the MDR field is that we deliver MDR across the entire enterprise, including cloud workloads, identity, and SaaS apps,” Halliwell continued. “We also offer unlimited 24/7 support and hands-on remediation “
The company’s name comes from the proverbial canary in the coal mine, and is analogous to its early warning capability. Since canaries are more sensitive than humans to toxic gas, if the canary keeled over dead in its cage, that generally meant it was a good time for the miners to get out.
Halliwell joined Red Canary in September 2021, and before his arrival, there was a channel, but it was very specific and thus limited.
“Prior to me coming in, we had been working with incident response firms, and would be brought into short-term engagements,” he said. “Those are our roots in the channel. In the last year the popularity of the MDR market has really taken off and the time was ripe to expand beyond incident response. That’s what drove this launch.”
In addition to the Incident Response partners, the new program has provisions to manage four other types: Managed Service Providers; Solution Providers; Technology Partners, and Insurance and Risk partners who have a referral relationship for insurance carriers and brokers with Red Canary, or Red Canary MSSPs
“We took a different approach in building our channel, one that is not just mass volume distribution, “Halliwell said. “What we realized is there are multiple partner types that support a customer in a breach, For example, insurance and risk comes in because when people started working remotely during COVID, breaches increased exponentially and cyberinsurance claims went up exponentially. Insurers scrutinized more around cyberinsurance. When we team up with the cyberinsurers themselves, we can provide a better experience by leveraging our ecosystem to team them with an MSP so the insurer can tell the customer that they can offer them this amount of insurance at this price. It’s a better overall experience for everyone.”
Similarly, technology partners and solution providers increasingly come into play because new capabilities allow Red Canary to ingest telemetry data from products like network firewalls and identity.
“This will let us team with network firewall providers, who can identity their resellers in a certain region and tell their customers they can make their network firewall experience better using their existing firewall, such as making it more efficient and reducing false positives by 99%,” Halliwell indicated.
Halliwell also said that the program’s goals are very specific, and don’t include mass partner recruitment in any way. The program currently has 30 plus channel partners.
“We want to provide a common framework to support the five different partner types,” he stated. “Common framework means leveraging multiple services with one contract, and partner management for all. Each subprogram will have its own specific elements, but the framework is common. In training, for example, we have dedicated technical account managers for each account that make sure the partner account team is up to speed on the Red Canary platform. It’s more of a one to one personal touch enablement approach though, and not a mass certification.”
Enablement bonuses feature a launch spiff combined with deal registration, so authorized partners who register a deal get not only price protection but a spiff when the deal is qualified by the Red Canary team. The spiffs include a Yeti cooler, AirPods Pro, and a Sonos speaker.
“We are also launching a turnkey webinar program – a campaign in a box – with either Red Canary plus Okta or Red Canary plus Fortinet,” Halliwell said. “This lets partners reach into where they have sold those products already and offer us as well.”
While Red Canary is not aggressively recruiting, Halliwell said they are always looking to chat with strong prospective partners.
“The MDR market is growing exponentially, and Gartner has said 50% will be using MDR services by 2025,” he stated. “If there is interest from channel partners, we would love to talk to them.”
