Monday, April 18, 2005
Interview with Marc Shinbrood, CEO of Breach Security
Marc Shinbrood is the new CEO of Carlsbad-based Breach Security (www.breach.com), a venture-backed security startup that is developing appliances aimed at protecting applications from hackers. I spoke with Marc to understand more what Breach's take on the security market, and where they fit into the solutions.
BK: What are Breach Security's products, and what kinds of areas of computer security are you addressing?
MS: Breach delivers deployable application security appliances to protect corporate and commercial applications, databases and the Web-presentation layer from attack by automated and human intruders.
The company's product line is the BreachGate suite of application security software and appliances, which include BreachGate Sitegrity, BreachView SSL and our newest product, BreachGate Detect. These products provide the next generation of Web application security. Our products enhance traditional network security solutions like IDS/IPS and firewalls through a non-intrusive approach that uses an adaptive learning process. This adaptive learning process, Adaption, protects the http and https traffic of large corporations and the government from malicious defacement, intrusions and hacker-induced information leakages.
BK: Why did you decide to join Breach, and what attracted you to the company?
MS: I saw it as a great opportunity and Breach was one of the earliest entrants into the application security arena. Breach has developed a strong technology and is now right on the edge of an exploding market. I believe our distributed detect/prevent architecture (DDPA), which non-intrusively brings application intelligence to customer's existing network infrastructure, will take application security to a whole new level.
BK: How does Breach Security fit into the competitive security landscape, and how do you differ from your competitors?
MS: Breach competes with other application security appliances but what sets us apart is our automated learning engine and our non-intrusive network implementation. BreachGate's technology "learns" acceptable application behavior rather than requiring costly application oriented coding and network configuration maintenance.
Three key differentiations are (1) Breach's products are sensitive to acceptable behaviors by applications and users so it uniquely monitors and controls what enters and leaves the network; (2) unlike other behavior-based application appliance providers, Breach can deliver detailed compliance and forensic reports about specific security events to further help the IT team do their job; and (3) since Breach controls security events that are not identifiable at the network layer. Our solutions leapfrog application firewalls and gateway providers to deliver an innovative kind of application security.
BK: Where is Breach in terms of funding and profitability?
MS: We are on track to reach profitability and are comfortably funded to achieve that goal. Our investors include Enterprise Partners, Pitango Venture Capital, Evergreen Venture Partners and Ascend Technology Ventures.
BK: What's your background, and how did you end up at Breach?
MS: I have been in the computer hardware/software solutions business as a vendor for 35 years. I have performed every job one can do in a computer software company from programmer to CEO. For the last ten years I have been immersed in the computer hardware/software security business.
Before joining Breach, I was the president and CEO of Treasure Coast Software, a startup provider of E-mail Personal Information Containment (EPIC) solutions. Prior to that venture, I served as senior vice president of business development for AXENT Technologies Inc., an enterprise class information security software company, which was acquired by Symantec Corp.
Earlier in my career, I was the president and CEO of ShowCase Corp. and TechGnosis Inc. and held senior management positions with Precise Software Solutions, WQuinn Associates, Cullinet Software and Business Software Technology.
I possess a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Purdue University. I was among the first class to receive a degree in Computer Science from Purdue.
BK: How do you go to market, and what are your primary customer segments?
MS: Today we sell our products with a seasoned direct outside and telesales team. We are in the process of developing a worldwide OEM and reseller channel.
BK: Finally, what's first on your plate as the new CEO of Breach?
MS: We have a strong team at Breach. The challenge is to focus that team on what's important, namely success: customer success, product success and sales success. Focus, focus, focus.
BK: Thanks!