After seeing its stock price decline significantly over the past year, along with a major executive leadership change, FireEye has unveiled a series of new products and global partnerships that should help improve its position in the cybersecurity solutions market.
In fits and starts, FireEye’s stock price has declined by more than 50% since November 2015. CEO Dave DeWalt announced his departure in May, and was replaced by Kevin Mandia, who joined FireEye with the purchase of Mandiant in 2014. Since that time the company has restructured, launched new products and embarked on a string of partnerships.
In November FireEye announced a deal with Microsoft that would see Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (WDATP) users gain access to FireEye’s iSIGHT adversary based intelligence. ‘
“As two security leaders working together, the combined Microsoft and FireEye adversary-based security intelligence ensures WDATP detections can provide the right context needed to prepare for and simplify response to attacks.”
Contrary to some early reports, however, this did not give FireEye access to Microsoft telemetry.
FireEye acquired iSIGHT Partners for $275 million in January 2016.
On December 16, FireEye and the NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI) announced an information sharing partnership, under which the two organizations will exchange non-classified technical information related to cyber threats and vulnerabilities.
“If we are going to move faster than the cyber threats we face, then it is absolutely imperative that we exchange timely and actionable threat information with industry,” said Maj. Gen. (ret) Koen Gijsbers, General Manager of the NCI Agency. “Our existing IPAs have already shown impressive results that are making a real difference to NCI Agency and our industry partners. FireEye’s depth of expertise from responding to many of the largest cyber breaches in the world will be very valuable to the IPA framework, and we look forward to a productive partnership.”
Today Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has announced a new partnership with Dimension Data and FireEye to build a Cyber Defense and Response Center (CDRC). The deal with FireEye will run for five years; that with DiData for three years with a two-year extension option.
The purpose of the CDRC is to boost VHA’s resilience against cyber-crime, and to make it easier to share threat information with the Australian government’s Cyber Security Centre.
“The capabilities, maturity, flexibility, and scalability of Dimension Data and FireEye enables us to be ready and open to exchange threat information and knowledge with the federal government’s Australian Cyber Security Centre, and ultimately contribute to protecting Australia’s national security and economic prosperity from online threats,” said Vodafone chief technology officer Kevin Millroy.
The CDRC will provide event monitoring, threat protection and intelligence, and incident response to help protect Vodafone and its customers against online security threats, as well as assist with the aftermath of an attack. In particular, it will help protect enterprise customers with proactive threat hunting; global threat intelligence correlation; vulnerability management; penetration testing; incident response; digital forensics; and crisis management.
“Cybercrime is a topic that we take very seriously at Vodafone,” said Millroy. “We have partnered with the industry’s best providers to help us protect our critical information and infrastructure, as well as intellectual property.”
FireEye’s Regional Director Richard Metcalfe said the deal reflects the growing awareness of cyber threats and the need to be proactive in defending against them.
“These risks confront organizations of all sizes, and it’s critical we collectively improve our defenses against these attacks. We’re pleased to join with Vodafone and Dimension Data to make the Cyber Defense & Response Centre a reality,” Metcalfe said.
Related: FireEye Launches New Cloud Products Amid Improved Financials