The recent data breaches at Equifax, Uber, Deloitte and Yahoo, are an indication of the ever-growing sophistication of hackers and cyberattacks. If this trend continues, breaches could be bigger, hackers smarter, and security teams more vulnerable.

Prevention is better than cure

Defining and implementing a robust cyber hygiene strategy is the key to preventing attacks before they even happen. Before we go further, let's understand what cyber hygiene actually means. It is essentially a set of practices that help manage the most common and pervasive cybersecurity risks faced by organizations today. Good cyber hygiene provides the foundations for protecting the infrastructure and data that enterprises rely on to run their businesses.

One of the key aspects of cyber hygiene is the requirement to identify vulnerabilities, both external and internal, to be able to minimize attack surface to potential cyberattacks. Although vulnerability management solutions have been in the market for the past couple of decades, managing internal vulnerabilities still remains a critical challenge for most organizations. Traditionally, this market has been dominated by players such as Qualys, Tenable, and Rapid7, however, new requirements within enterprise environments are demanding a different approach to vulnerability management.

Customer needs

Today's security leaders manage more products and more devices in the face of ever-changing threats. Each new layer of security generates more data but leaves the fundamental question unanswered: What are my biggest risks?

Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) and Chief Risk Officers (CROs) of large enterprises struggle to gain visibility and understand the conditions and activities in their IT environments that represent a risk to their business. Visibility and context are key for leaders to identify and respond quickly and effectively. Without a single, authoritative view of vulnerability, the answer is always out of reach. Mistrust of the data leads to doubts about key decisions, requiring time-consuming analysis to back up every investment or action.

No more flying blind

As CISOs and CROs struggle with ways to manage their internal vulnerabilities and associated risk, Panaseer has developed a platform to address this problem. Founded in 2014, Panaseer provides a holistic view of a company's internal cyber risk and vulnerability management situation. The UK-based startup provides enterprise security leaders with a solution to gain maximum visibility and insight into the company's security posture to make better-informed security and risk decisions. The Panaseer platform combines an organization's security, IT and business data with best-practice analytics to reveal the true picture of enterprise cyber hygiene and risk. Panaseer's customers include some of the world's largest financial institutions and enterprises both in Europe and United States.

Panaseer raises new funding

We are excited that Panaseer represents Cisco Investments' most recent investment in cybersecurity in Europe. We believe that solutions such as Panaseer will become a must-have in every security team's toolkit to help mitigate vulnerabilities and assess cyber risk. We look forward to building on this investment and helping large enterprises better understand their internal security posture and improve cyber hygiene. If you or your security team is looking for solutions to improve cyber hygiene or opportunities for partnership in this space, feel free to reach out to Cisco Investments to discuss. To find out more info about Panaseer and solutions it provides please visit panaseer.com.

About Author: Vin Lingathoti joined Cisco Investments in 2015 and focuses on investments in Cybersecurity and Enterprise Infrastructure in EMEA region. In his role, Vin serves as a board observer at Panaseer, Behaviosec, Intersec, and 6Wind. He is also a member of LP Advisory Committee at Evolution Equity, Partech Ventures and Idinvest. He has over a decade experience in the tech industry and held multiple roles in corporate development, private equity, management consulting and product management.