CyberFOX combines what had been two different kinds of IAM companies, password management company Password Boss and PAM vendor AutoElevate – although the plan is to broaden out the platform further going forward.
David Bellini. CEO CyberFOX
This week at the IT Nation Secure event in Orlando, CyberFOX, a new companies led by David Bellini unveiled itself. CyberFOX brings together two IAM companies in which the principals were invested, password management tool Password Boss, and Privilege Access Management provider AutoElevate. Connectwise veteran Bellini becomes CEO of CyberFOX, while industry veteran Adam Slutskin becomes CRO [Chief Revenue Officer} and CSO [Chief Strategy Officer].
“Adam was the link between the two companies,” Bellini said. “He was helping Password Boss go to market and was on the AutoElevate Board.”
Slutskin pointed out a key point that made both of these companies attractive to both he and Bellini – they were created and owned by MSPs.
“The founders of these companies were both long time MSPs,” he said. “The companies we have invested in as well as bought were all run by MSPs. Jim Lippe, who runs SaaS Alerts, was an MSP. So were principals at Lionguard and Crushbank. That’s really what we are looking for.”
CyberFOX enters a market where they compete – on paper at least – with other PAM and password management solutions, but they don’t expect to be fighting them tooth and nail.
Adam Slutskin, CRO and CSO, CyberFOX
“We don’t expect to be aggressively competing against these companies,” Slutskin said. “Partners can aggregate them into one solution. We know how to price and package. We don’t want to be the cost centre. We want to be the profit centre. We are proud of the fact that we are significantly less expensive than our competitors.”
“We know MSPs can’t afford the tools of an enterprise,” Bellini said. “We provide 90% of enterprise capability at 10% of the cost. Small business is underserved right now for cybersecurity.
“I’ve also been an MSP for 40 years,” Bellini added. “The knowledge worker of today typically does 3x the work of knowledge workers 40 years ago. We want to help with that knowledge.”
The AutoElevate solution delivers automated privileged access management software, using the principle of “least privilege” for end user workstations. Administrative privileges are automatically elevated only when required to run approved and trusted applications.
“Probably 80-90% of end users in a Microsoft environment have users on local admin rights so they can install what they need without having to constantly open tickets,” Bellini said. “We keep everything down on standard rights, which is Microsoft best practices. We also allow MSPs to give access to the latest version of well-known safe products like Quicken. The MSP is able to do all this remotely. We solve the problem, and it is all branded with the MSP’s logo.”
Password Boss is an enterprise-grade password management solution provider that is also specifically designed for MSPs and their customers. It has a multi-tenant management portal which allows for automatic deployments through an MSP’s RMM platform and synchronizes across devices.
Bellini also stressed that unlike some of the competition in the business in these areas, they are entirely channel focused.
“We do 99% of our business in the MSP channel, while some do 1%, selling directly to both enterprise and SMB end users,” he said. “We have all the integrations with the major RMM and PSA vendor in place as well.”
“We have really enjoyed working with the founders, Steve Wise [Password Boss] and Todd Jones [AutoElevate],” Slutskin emphasized. “Everyone is still with the company.”
Slutkin pointed out that the CyberFOX name has a history. It had been owned by an individual who used it for personal use, and was highly resistant to selling it until he heard a number he liked.
“It certainly wasn’t free,” he said. “But the company has rallied around the name. It’s a good name, that our VP of Marketing first suggested. We needed something that would allow us to represent the different products we had – and will have.”
That latter point is key, because the plan is not to stop with Password Boss and AutoElevate.
“We have this vision of building out a broader platform,” Slutskin said.
