Happy New Year—let’s make it a good one!

Need to catch up? Check out past Round-Ups

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There’s nothing scarier than the truth

eSentire kicked off December by scaring the hell out of everyone with their latest threat intelligence spotlight, Defending Against Modern Ransomware: Lessons from the SunWalker Incident.

The report is essentially a two-parter that first addresses some misconceptions and closes some knowledge gaps before then switching into eSentire-specific content. This approach is an effective way to “level-up” the reader so they can understand and appreciate the real meat of the message.

The first part examines the cybercrime economy in general, and the evolution of ransomware operations in particular—it’s a sobering education that dispels the myth that ransomware attacks are exclusively highly targeted incidents and demonstrates why, truly, every organization is at risk.

The second part reads like a play-by-play of how eSentire’s SOC analysts and Threat Response Unit fought off a sustained ransomware attack against an online education provider. Importantly, this part shows the importance, value, and necessity of many of the security services and technologies eSentire provides—and no doubt will cause readers to wonder how their organization would have fared if facing the same plight.

Ultimately, this spotlight is an effective combination of high-level information and an acute, memorable incident that together provide compelling answers to a range of questions prospects might ask as they look for security solutions:

• Why outsource cybersecurity?
• Why choose Managed Detection and Response (MDR)?
• Why choose eSentire as the MDR provider?

It’s a potential model to follow if you find yourself needing to close some knowledge gaps before you can really do your pitch.

Selling technical solutions is hard, not least because much of the time your audience doesn’t know enough to make sense of what you’re saying. We examine this challenge in Selling Technical Solutions in a World that Doesn’t Understand

Bits and Bytes

Here are a few other December notables:

• In the October Round-Up we highlighted Preseem’s Fixed Wireless Network Report (2020 Q3 Fall Edition)—an effective way to promote this type of content and to funnel people towards the full report is to create and share infographic summaries, and that’s exactly what Preseem recently did
• Dejero’s products are in very high demand these days as media producers look to reduce the number of people on set / on location due to COVID-19 restrictions—this new customer success story brings the solutions to life in a relatable, engaging, and educational way
• eSentire also released a Cybersecurity Toolkit for Small to Medium-sized Manufacturers—if you’ve ever looked at large-scale cybersecurity toolkits (e.g. NIST) then you’ll understand that they can be a tad overwhelming; this one makes the most important points more accessible and consider them through an industry-specific lens
• KA Imaging relaunched their website—check it out to get a look at a company that’s going to revolutionize X-ray imaging (and get your nerd on in the science center)

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Aaaand that’s a wrap.

If you want to nominate something for inclusion in the January round-up, then hit me up.