CXOToday has engaged in an exclusive interview with Dan Schiappa, Chief Product and Services Officer at Arctic Wolf
- Can you share the strategic rationale behind your India expansion and choosing Bengaluru as the location for the Global Capability Centre (GCC)?
Bengaluru is a global hub for technology and cybersecurity professionals, offering access to a highly skilled and diverse workforce that can drive innovation and product development. In particular, Arctic Wolf is focused on adding AI specialists and data scientists that will accelerate the integration of advanced machine learning models and AI-driven cybersecurity detections within our platform. Threat actors do not take time off, and when a new vulnerability or threat emerges, it is important to deploy new detection and response actions as quickly as possible. With R&D teams in different time zones across the globe, Arctic Wolf can ensure continuous development and faster response times to evolving security challenges, creating a 24/7 operational advantage.
- Are there any plans for further opening any other Centres in India?
While our primary focus is on establishing and scaling the Bengaluru GCC, we remain open to exploring other strategic locations in India based on business needs, talent availability, and market demands.
- You recently acquired Cylance from Blackberry, the market is rife with speculations about what this means for you. Do you have any updates on how the Cylance acquisition strengthens your market position?
The endpoint security space is ripe for disruption, so we are excited at the definitive agreement we have signed to acquire BlackBerry’s Cylance endpoint security assets. We will be able to share more insights after the deal closes, which is expected to be in BlackBerry’s fourth fiscal quarter.
- What do you foresee happening in India after Cylance acquisition, considering they did have India presence?
We’re excited to leverage the technical expertise of our India team to enhance all aspects of the Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform. We’ll be able to share more after the acquisition officially closes.
- Now coming to your other business operations, what do you do in “Security Operations Cloud”. How does this platform differentiate Arctic Wolf from competitors in terms of scalability and technology?
The Arctic Wolf Security Aurora Platform processes over 7 trillion events per week, and enriches them with threat intelligence and risk context to drive faster threat detection, simplify incident response, and eliminate alert fatigue. Our platform is built on an open-XDR architecture, solving the biggest challenge organizations face in cybersecurity: collecting and storing security data across attack surfaces in real time; enriching, analyzing, and investigating this data; and using both artificial and human intelligence to respond decisively to threats and attacks. When combined with Arctic Wolf’s Concierge Delivery Model and Security Journey, organizations can achieve critical security outcomes that drive down cyber risk, empowering them to focus on success and innovation for their business.
- Will the India Center be working on some of these cutting-edge stuff? Or what specific technological and engineering advancements will the new center focus on in the short to medium term?
The new India office location will play a pivotal role in scaling and advancing the Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform, along with our entire suite of security operations solutions. By tapping into the highly skilled workforce in Bengaluru, we aim to further accelerate the development of advanced machine learning models and AI-driven cybersecurity detections within our platform, providing our customers with unparalleled protection against evolving cyber threats. Arctic Wolf plans to hire 150 employees by mid-2025, with recruitment focused on roles in core research and development areas including threat intelligence, and AI.
- With the increasing use of AI in cybersecurity, how does Arctic Wolf integrate AI/ML capabilities into its services?
The Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform is powered by Alpha AI, Arctic Wolf’s proprietary suite of cutting-edge machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies. With Alpha AI technology, Arctic Wolf transforms insights from over 500,000 daily malware samples and more than 125,000 monthly SOC investigations into actionable intelligence customized for each organization’s unique environment. By using these advanced capabilities, we refine trillions of data points a week to, on average, one ticket a day per customer – a 99.9999966% reduction in noise.
- Given your experience in engineering leadership, how do you envision the role of your team evolving as the company continues to expand its global presence?
The research and development arm of Arctic Wolf will be essential to advancing cybersecurity innovations, and tapping into talent hubs like Bengaluru is a critical step toward building robust product and engineering teams.
- Cybersecurity companies often face challenges related to scalability and speed of service delivery. How does Arctic Wolf plan to address these challenges as it expands both in terms of headcount and service offerings?
The Arctic Wolf Aurora Platform powers one of the largest commercial security operations centers (SOCs) in the world, now processing more than seven trillion security events each week. By integrating our Alpha AI technology into the platform, we’ve taken steps to make sure that we’re able to filter down these security events to deliver, on average, one ticket per day per customer with a 99.9% true positive rate. We also pair a team of our security operations experts directly with our customer’s IT or security staff, enabling constant monitoring of security tools and timely response to alerts.
- Deepfake technology has made it easier for cybercriminals to impersonate senior management through manipulated audio and video. What steps should organizations take to protect themselves from these types of scams, and how can businesses ensure that their employees remain vigilant against such threats?
Organizations need to invest in basic cyber hygiene to boost their resiliency against deepfake and AI-powered social engineering scams. With regular security awareness training that emphasizes flagging suspicious emails or messages, hovering over links before clicking them to ensure they’re legitimate and contacting colleagues or supervisors in-person before answering suspicious requests or messages from them, businesses will build a strong security culture.
- As the cybersecurity landscape evolves, what upcoming trends or challenges is Arctic Wolf preparing to tackle?
Arctic Wolf is prepared to redefine the cybersecurity market with an operational approach to security, tackling the latest in AI-powered threats and advancements in malware with a cybersecurity platform that not only keeps pace with threats but actively reduces risk and builds long-term resilience.
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