Forcepoint to Enhance Data Security With Getvisibility Buy

Forcepoint is buying an Irish data security posture management startup to enhance the company’s AI capabilities for data classification and risk assessment.

See Also: Why Zero Trust requires uncompromising network visibility

The Austin-based data security firm said its proposed acquisition of Cork, Ireland-based OEM partner Getvisibility will help Forcepoint gain full control over its AI-driven data security solutions. CEO Ryan Windham said the agreement to buy Getvisibility aligns with broader market trends where CISOs and enterprises seek end-to-end data security solutions rather than disparate tools.

“Our customers were asking us to do more and more integrations together, and it started to go beyond what we could do within the confines of an OEM agreement,” Windham told Information Security Media Group. “So, it just made sense for us to come together here.”

Getvisibility, founded in 2017, employs 50 people and has raised nearly $15 million in three rounds of outside funding, most recently completing a $10.9 million Series A funding round in March 2022 co-led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and Fortino Capital. The company had been led since mid-2020 by Mark Brosnan, who previously spent nearly seven years as CEO of Matchbook service provider Xanadu.

The company’s AI Mesh technology stands out since it is based on multiple small language models rather than a single monolithic AI models, which will help Forcepoint fine-tune models for specific industries, use cases and security threats. Instead of relying on static, rule-based security models that can produce false positives or miss subtle threats, Windham said the AI Mesh adjusts based on data, context and user behavior (see: Future-Proofing Cybersecurity With Data-Centric Approaches).

“The way that the Getvisibility team has really evolved, it has made it possible to now paint that picture of really understanding that context and that nuance that was maybe more difficult to understand when vendors were taking more of a rules-based approach,” Windham said. “With the rules-based approach, you get lots of false positives, and then on the other hand, there’s things that you miss.”

How Forcepoint, Getvisibility Will Come Together

Windham said Forcepoint plans to apply Getvisibility’s capability across data discovery, classification and risk assessment, enabling a more accurate and efficient framework. With the rise of generative AI, security teams must understand both what data is being input into AI models as well as what insights are being output, with AI Mesh enhancing Forcepoint’s ability to detect and mitigate these risks.

Integrating data security posture management, data detection and response reporting, and workflow management into Forcepoint’s platforms will give CISOs a unified dashboard to monitor data security risks, Windham said. And expanding AI Mesh capabilities across Forcepoint’s broader product suite will help with real-time risk analysis as well as automated remediation of security threats.

“The products continue to work together as they have, but this would just be a tighter integration around reporting, dashboards, workflow management, that sort of thing,” Windham said. “So, that’s the big one, really giving our CISOs and customers a unified reporting interface into their risks.”

Forcepoint’s integration of DSPM, DDR, DLP, CASB and SWG into a single platform provides a unique competitive advantage, Windham said, with data discovery and classification across SaaS, cloud, on-premises and AI environments; automated risk assessment and remediation using AI; and cross-platform data protection. He said AI Mesh makes security management more efficient by cutting false positives.

“We’ve been using it for content classification as part of our DSPM and DDR offering,” Windham said. “But what is really exciting to us is how we can leverage this AI Mesh in other parts of the platform to really give CISOs and our customer base at large really a sense for the risk that they’re exposed to and help them to prioritize the closing down of vulnerabilities and addressing data loss opportunities.”

The success of the Getvisibility acquisition will be measured primarily through revenue growth and ARR, with Forcepoint tracking product integration progress as a high-level operational KPI, Windham said. He also said Forcepoint aims to simplify security management by providing a unified security dashboard for better visibility, leveraging AI to automate risk assessment and focusing on high-priority threats.

“CISOs are overloaded with information, and they need to be able to go one place and really understand top down, ‘What are my biggest priorities and what needs action?'” he said. “And then they need to be able to action it directly, ideally from that location, from that dashboard.”