Everfox Deepens Cyber Case Management Expertise with Yakabod

Everfox purchased a case management company led by the former chief technology officer of ManTech to better address insider risk and cyber incident management.

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The Washington, D.C.-area vendor said advances in artificial intelligence and the cyberthreat landscape have required more sophisticated case management and workflow tools to meet the strict requirements of government and critical infrastructure clients, said CEO Sean Berg. Moving from an OEM partnership to ownership of Frederick, Maryland-based Yakabod will aid tight integration and a seamless experience.

“It’s a technology that we’re very interested in with respect to our very large insider risk portfolio of customers and capabilities, and it solves an important component of that around case management,” Berg told Information Security Media Group. “We’ve been partners for some time now. We’ve gotten to know them really well. Taking it from an OEM relationship to an ownership state was not a heavy lift.”

Why Everfox Opted to Own Rather Than Partner With Yakabod

Yakabod, founded in 2001, employs 20 people and hasn’t raised any outside funding. The company has been led since inception by Scott Ryser, who previously spent five years overseeing technology at defense contracting giant ManTech (see: CEO Sean Berg on Why Independence Benefits Forcepoint G2CI).

Transitioning from an OEM partnership to an ownership model will help Everfox get tighter integration with Yakabod’s case management technology, enabling more seamless user experience and accelerating the integration of both companies’ R&D and go-to-market teams, Berg said. Yakabod’s technology has been deployed in government networks, where high-assurance and compliance standards are essential.

Full ownership of Yakabod enables tighter integration across Everfox’s platform, including its R&D and go-to-market teams, Berg said. This arrangement will enable quicker innovation, better enterprise value and a unified platform that benefits customers by providing a cohesive experience across insider risk and cyber case management needs, according to Berg.

“We have deep customer relationships across government and critical infrastructure customers,” Berg said. “If you really want to leverage that, then an ownership structure is a much easier way to make that happen. It gets you better enterprise value and better value for our customers when it’s all part of one company, one platform, and an integrated user experience.”

Yakabod’s case management technology is designed to support sensitive investigations, covering all stages from user activity monitoring to incident response, according to Berg. He said the technology is tailored for secure workflows, risk analysis and regulatory compliance. Yakabod meets the stringent requirements of air-gapped networks, where cloud-based case management tools are often infeasible.

“You want to be able to share certain information with people that have only certain access, and you need a case management tool that allows you to do that,” Berg said. “It has to be able to do risk analysis, understand business impact, provide some level of management and case flow prioritization, and a lot of other specific use cases that help the overall mission of the organization.”

How AI is Reshaping Case Management for Insider Risk, Cyber

Advancements in AI and increasing cyberthreats have required CISOs to rethink traditional defense strategies, particularly as it relates to critical infrastructure. Everfox focuses on supporting high-consequence missions that require technology able to operate on classified networks and meet strict compliance standards, and the purchase of Yakabod will boost Everfox’s ability to meet those demands.

“We deal with the most difficult challenges and the most high-consequence missions that exist on the planet,” Berg said. “We’re continuing to look at how we continue to enhance our portfolio to support those critical customers and the critical missions that they serve, and look at bringing new capabilities in that meet that high assurance.”

Yakabod’s customer base includes sectors Everfox has not yet fully penetrated such as state and local government and law enforcement, according to Berg. He urged CISOs of government and critical infrastructure organizations to prioritize high-assurance, defense-grade solutions as traditional security methods may not be sufficient against modern threats.

“The landscape is changing for CISOs across the world, especially with both the increasing threats that are occurring out there and then how AI is shaping those threats,” Berg said. “The traditional methods of protecting their environment and managing cases and managing these technologies is changing. CISOs that are in government or critical infrastructure are going to have to adapt to that.”

The purchase of Yakabod comes less than five months after Everfox bought British hardware-enforced security vendor Garrison to give governments more threat prevention and insider risk capabilities. Berg said Everfox seeks partnerships or acquisitions that add specific high-assurance capabilities and boost its defense-grade cybersecurity offerings for complex and critical missions (see: Everfox to Acquire British Hardware Security Vendor Garrison).

“We have a core set of capabilities that we focus on in our core markets, which is governments and critical infrastructure organizations,” Berg said. “We focus on those high-assurance capabilities where traditional commercial cyber technologies can’t address the challenge.”