UPDATED 09:00 EDT / SEPTEMBER 08 2021

SECURITY

FireMon buys DisruptOps and welcomes back its former CEO

Network security policy management startup FireMon LLC is welcoming its former chief executive officer back into the fold as it expands into risk monitoring and incident response with the acquisition of fellow startup DisruptOps Inc.

FireMon sells tools aimed at making firewalls more effective at blocking threats. Firewalls work by blocking suspicious network traffic from reaching a company’s computer systems, based on rules set by security operators.

The problem with this approach is that firewall security rules become less effective over time as new infrastructure and applications are added to a network, as well as when existing assets such as legacy workloads are taken offline. A large company might see hundreds of such changes over the course of a month, and if its network firewall isn’t recalibrated regularly, security gaps can appear.

FireMon’s software, which is used by the likes of IBM Corp. and the London Stock Exchange, helps automate the process of recalibrating enterprise firewalls. It works by detecting infrastructure changes such as when a new instance is added to a Google Cloud deployment, then adjusting firewall policies based on that modification.

As for DisruptOps, the company has created a Cloud Security Operations platform that monitors for risks in real-time across public clouds including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and soon Google Cloud. Its software provides alerting tools that ensure critical issues are routed to the correct responders, as well as guidance on how to remediate the problems it identifies.

An intriguing twist to today’s acquisition is that both companies were founded by the same person, Jody Brazil, and it means he’ll be returning to FireMon as its new CEO. After establishing FireMon, Brazil left to found and build DisruptOps. Now that he has done that, he’ll be returning “home” to lead the newly combined entity.

“After many years at the helm, I left to start DisruptOps, which shared the same overarching vision as FireMon – to improve security outcomes by improving security operations,” Brazil told SiliconANGLE. “The big difference at DisruptOps is that we focused on the cloud and the overwhelming complexities it brought with it. Because of our heritage, we were able to apply many of the lessons learned from our time in network security policy management to develop innovative capabilities for managing cloud infrastructure.”

Brazil insisted there was never any plan to combine the two companies, saying each one had its own path. But he said when the possibility of an acquisition emerged, he realized the two companies would move faster with a more comprehensive offering for customers.

Brazil said by combining FireMon’s firewall automation capabilities with DisruptOps, customers will be able to access a comprehensive compliance and security platform for both on-premises and public cloud environments.

“Bringing DisruptOps and FireMon together adds transformational cloud security automation capabilities to FireMon’s leading security management platform,” he said. “Together we will deliver the security operations platform of the future.

Image: FireMon

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