Morphisec, which makes a cyberdefense platform and an Anti-Ransomware Assurance Suite that provides multi-layered endpoint protection to proactively prevent 100% of ransomware attacks at the endpoint, has announced the appointment of Rohyt Belani as its newest Strategic Advisor. Belani, likely best known for founding and leading of Cofense [formerly PhishMe] until its 2018 acquisition by private equity, has over 23 years of experience in cybersecurity and a proven track record of scaling category-defining companies. While Belani sits on the board, he will play a pivotal role in driving Morphisec’s go-to-market acceleration, expanding MSSP channel partnerships, and enhancing the company’s market positioning.
Belani’s extensive experience working with subscription-based cybersecurity solutions and deep knowledge of the MSSP business is expected to help Morphisec strengthen its leadership in anti-ransomware using its advanced deception technology Automated Moving Target Defense (AMTD). His familiarity with MSSPs is also expected to help Morphisec expand its global partner ecosystem.
Belani explained how he wound up at Morphisec, a joint U.S-Israeli company whose software development is mainly in Israel.
“I’ve taken a position as Strategic Advisor, which is not a full time employment position, but I am a member of the Advisory Board because of my being founder and CEO of a couple of startups that we were able to build,” Belani said. “The last 12 to 13 years of my career, I have been focused on email security, the human aspect around it, as well as the technology to protect, detect and respond to attacks that came in via the channel. What I saw over the years is that one of the primary types of attack for ransomware was the email channel, although it was not the only channel that received ransomware attacks. Ransomware is a multi-billion dollar industry for the bad guys.
“When I was talking with Ron [Reinfeld, CEO of Morphisec], he said Morphisec was taking a unique approach in addressing this problem. The novelty lies in the fact that most of the organizations out there focus in a reactive way in responding to these attacks, and after the fact, recover from it. And while Morphisec has these capabilities, what differentiates them is the ability to prevent the attacks in the first place. They are able to create a mirage for the bad guys. To me it was very appealing to see this kind of holistic platform, to turn the tables on the bad guys. That’s what got me excited. I wanted to work with the management team here.”
Morphisec sells primarily through the MSSP channel, although they do have other routes to market, notably VARs and Technology Partners.
“They sell through all of them, but the MSSP channel is really the focus here,” Belani stated. “The MSSPs are at the forefront of having to deal with these ransomware attacks. What Morphisec has done really well is create a multi-tenant system, which is truly built for MSSPs. Many vendors build for the enterprise and then say yeah, we are open to MSSPs as well, not realizing that it’s a very different product and you have to build specially for them. Morphisec is truly catering to both those verticals. The strategic focus of the company just now is to expand and build out the MSSP channel. Right now, that channel is fairly select.
The number of MSSP partners is limited, and is a little over 15, because a lot of their customers are large customers,” Belani said.
Morphisec’s Go to Market strategy has evolved somewhat recently.
“It started off as a classic founder-led business with a very strong technical founder,” Belani said. “I would say that for the most part, when the technology was demonstrated as proof of conception, it sort of sold itself. So there was a lot of direct selling in the early days, and they started seeing traction with some really big names on the direct sales side. But they realized that in order to achieve scalability, they really had to be focusing on their multi-tenant offering with the MSSPs.”
Today, the channel partners are based in North America and Europe.
“From my conversations with Ron [Reinfeld, the CEO], my focus is to enhance the way the channel model is structured,” Belani noted. “The idea is to get a lot more partners in these geographies, and to get people excited.”
Belani’s extensive experience working with subscription-based cybersecurity solutions and deep insights into the MSSP landscape will help Morphisec strengthen its leadership in Anti-Ransomware using its advanced deception technology Automated Moving Target Defense (AMTD).
“They now have the AMTD technology, and it has been adopted by customers and is in production, with a lot of customers using it across the board,” Belani said. “EDR is an after the fact detection at best. Most organizations don’t like to tout their security stack. They don’t want the attackers to know what they are using. But because ransomware is such an economically driven attack, I almost feel like putting that up. It’s like saying that an ADD alarm system sign in your yard dissuades people. It’s almost worth Morphisec’s customers advertising that.”
AMTD can be highly effective against ransomware.
“Ransomware attackers want to compromise someone with higher levels of access,” Belani commented. “It really comes down to looking at how the customers are using the technology and where their pain points lie, and what they are focused on.”
So how do you drive the AMTD technology deeper into the market?
“We have had discussions, and from a Go To Market perspective it’s a good thing, because the technology can do a lot of things,” Belani indicated. “But that can dilute the message with the market. What I am advising them to do is to focus on two or three primary use cases. Specialize in them and go deep in those use cases. And they are very receptive to that.”
Working with the large platform vendors is also likely to be fruitful, Belani said.
“A lot of larger players like Palo Alto Networks and CrowdStrike have created platforms in their ecosystems, and therein lies a solid opportunity for Morphisec, especially if the vendor has a gaping hole in their portfolio and gives their sales team an incentive to promote the technology,” Belani stated. “Map out what the larger players are doing in the space, and how can you tap into their platforms.”
Morphisec has a challenge working with MSSPs while avoiding any channel conflict.
“A lot of the MSSPs, the challenge they deal with in the fight against ransomware is that a lot of companies have their own service arms doing it and then run into channel conflicts” Belani said. “It’s important for a company to work with their own partners and not conflict with the channel developing their own. My advice to the folks at Morphisec is you want to avoid channel conflict at all costs because that’s a recipe for disaster. Beyond the MSSPs as the company looks to expand into international geographies, they have to set up their reseller strategy and compensation model and support they will provide from a marketing standpoint. Those are things beng discussed beyond the current expansion of the MSSP base.”
So what does the Belani appointment signal for the future of channel-driven cybersecurity growth?
“When I ran Cofense, we had a lot of partners, MSSPs and distributors and resellers,” he said. “We set up a very channel-friendly model so they could make a nice chunk of change. Morphisec needs to set up a similar model and say that the market is open for business as far as the channel is concerned.”