The open-source policing of cybercrime

AlienVault was selected as one of World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers for 2013. Barmak Mefta, President and Chief Executive Officer of AlienVault, discusses their work in building collaborative tools to tackle online threats.

AlienVault is very proud to be named one of the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers for 2013. We share this commendation with some of the world’s most innovative and entrepreneurial companies.

We work in the field of cybercrime – a global problem with far-reaching impacts. It can cripple businesses, disarm governments and militaries, and wreak havoc on critical infrastructure. Attackers are well organized and institutionally funded.

AlienVault set out on a mission to transform the world’s attitude towards information security and its response to it. The old model for security relied on proprietary, expensive and closed systems. It was security for the few.

We believe in security for all, and that the only way to address the global problem of cybercrime is through collaboration and by making “enterprise-class” security tools available to organizations of all types, sizes and budgets.

We have made great strides towards this mission by creating an open Unified Security Management platform that integrates all the necessary security capabilities and provides visibility across all security controls.

We have also built the largest community-sourced “threat intelligence” database – our Open Threat Exchange – which aggregates threat information from over 77 countries to date. It is free to anyone who wants to contribute.

This is just the beginning. We know the problem of cybercrime can’t be solved overnight. There is much work to be done. It will take collaboration with our customers, users, the security community, and many other parties, to make our vision of open security a reality.

We are honoured that the World Economic Forum believes we have what it takes to do just that.

About the author: Barmak Meftah is President and Chief Executive Officer of AlienVault Inc, selected as one of World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers for 2013.

Pictured: Participants walk in the camping area of the Campus Party event in Sao Paulo. Campus Party is an annual week-long, 24-hour technology festival that gathers around 7000 hackers, developers, gamers and computer geeks from around the world. REUTERS/Fernando Donasci