The interview covered a wide range of topics, including why Proficio was formed, about our company’s global expansion and other managed security topics.
McElwee was asked why he, along with co-founders Brad Taylor and John Humphreys, started Proficio, a managed security services provider (MSSP), in 2010.
“We founded Proficio to fill the gap in the market by providing medium to large-sized organizations with the same advanced threat detection and response capabilities that were then largely available to Fortune 100 enterprises alone.
For most enterprises, with exception of the largest ones, operating a SIEM was a daunting task involving significant upfront cost and requiring a team of experts to manage, update, and monitor the system. It was clear to us that many organizations would prefer to use this type of software delivered as a service and supported by experts.”
Proficio is headquartered in Carlsbad, CA, and rapidly expanding across the globe. The company’s second security operations center (SOC) in Singapore just moved in to a new office and McElwee explained how the Singapore team continues to play an integral part in Proficio.
“In 2017, our Singapore headquarters will become an innovation hub, enabling us to define new approaches to threat detection and response. Our Asia- Pacific technical team will focus on understanding threats originating in Asia and identify vulnerabilities that require a specific regional response.
In 2017, we will also expand our operations in Australia and Northern Asia.”
Expansion is necessary to continue supporting the growth of the Proficio customer base. Given the current threat landscape, many organizations are realizing the need for 24×7 security along with the benefits of outsourcing some, or all, of their security.
With so many MSSPs to select from, Proficio must find a way to stand out from the crowd. McElwee explained how why customers choose to partner with Proficio to be an extension of their IT team.
“Our customers tell us that we stand out from the competition because of our ability to accurately detect threats and provide actionable alerts and guidance. We achieve this through a combination of powerful analytics platforms combined with investigations by expert security analysts to uncover threats and hunt for APTs. We also customize our content and rules specifically for each customer so our service is modeled to their security policies, asset priorities, and IT infrastructure.
We were one of the first MSSPs to offer automated response solutions and today we offer our customers a range of mechanisms to block attacks and orchestrate workflow.
We have also been a leader in managing next-generation endpoint security products. There has been an increased focus on protecting endpoints and MSSPs must play a significant role is managing these solutions.
Our strategy is to continue to do an excellent job in both detection and response regardless of whether a customer uses a traditional data center, a cloud-based infrastructure, or a hybrid model.”
McElwee concluded the interview with some thoughts on where Proficio and the managed security industry is heading.
“The managed security business is evolving from a traditional model that focuses on the perimeter and managing security devices to a holistic one. MSSPs today must be able to detect advanced attacks, address threats from the endpoint to the cloud, and proactively prevent cybercriminals from damaging their customers’ business. We will continue to provide our customers with unparalleled value as measured by the quality of our service and simplicity of our model.”
Read the full text of the interview.
