Black Hat USA 2024 | Yevgeny Dibrov & Nadir Izrael | Armis

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Yevgeny Dibrov

CEO & Co-Founder

Armis Security

Nadir Izrael

Co-founder & CTO

Armis Security

Gen AI drives Armis’ innovations in asset intelligence and proactive cybersecurity

Today’s security incident management landscape demands companies to be agile, proactive and responsive to ever-changing threat surfaces. With generative artificial intelligence in the mix, as many solutions exist in defenders’ toolboxes as threat vectors for attackers.Exploring Armis’ approach to gen AI-driven cybersecurity with Yevgeny Dibrov and Nadir Izrael.By leveraging gen AI, Armis Inc. safeguards business-critical customer data and has doubled its annual recurring revenue figures, according to Yevgeny Dibrov (pictured, right), co-founder and chief executive officer of Armis

play_circle_outline Strengthening Product Development Through Black Hat Community Engagement and Customer Feedback Expansion

play_circle_outline Revolutionizing Growth Through Customer Solutions, AI, and Machine Learning in Product Development

play_circle_outline Defensive approach to security with home court advantage using data

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Yevgeny Dibrov & Nadir Izrael | Armis

Yevgeny Dibrov

CEO & Co-Founder Armis Security

Nadir Izrael

Co-founder & CTO Armis Security

In a recent interview, Yevgeny and Nadir from Armis discussed their company's growth and the importance of the cybersecurity community. They highlighted the role of AI in enhancing their platform and addressing security challenges. Armis has experienced significant growth, doubling their ARR and expanding product offerings. They are focused on proactive risk management and providing a comprehensive solution for exposure management. The team emphasized continuous validation of customer needs and staying competitive in the cybersecurity landscape. Their goal is... Read more

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What does the Black Hat show mean for Armis and why is this community so important to the company? add

What role has AI played in revolutionizing the landscape of cybersecurity solutions and how has it impacted the development of Armis Centrix? add

What advantage does AI on the defensive side have over attackers in cybersecurity? add

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Yevgeny Dibrov & Nadir Izrael | Armis

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>> Good afternoon nerd fam and welcome back to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. We are midway through our two days of coverage here at Black Hat and my goodness, have we had some interesting guests. My name's Savannah Peterson. Very excited to be joined by some super brilliant lads today on the show. Yevgeny and Nadir, thank you so much for taking the time.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Great to be here, Savannah. And in general, we love Black Hat and every time it's such a great experience, so much energy, so many great meetings, so much going on, and great to be here.

>> There really is an energy at this show in the community. You mentioned 13 years in a row at Black Hat. You've been here for nine, Nadir. What does the show mean for Armis? I noticed you've got brand activations all over. I saw you've rented out the cafe down there. I see what's going on. I'm picking up what you're throwing down. Tell me about why this community is so important.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Yeah, because everybody's coming here from customers, partners, and also when we talk about customers, it can be CISOs, CIOs, but also the practitioners, so a lot of good conversations in terms of the usage of the Armis products, new products that we are selling at Armis, new products that being leveraged by customers across the board. A lot of conversation between customers to customers. Actually, we had just-

>> Hyping you up, I hope.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Just one hour ago we had a chat together with a great customer that was sharing about great experience with another customer that came by from asset management, the vulnerability prioritization, and how it was something like so much value and board of directors are looking exactly at all the Armis reports and it's so exciting to see.

>> I just got to ask a personal question on that note because that's probably a magical thing to walk up and overhear. How does it make you feel as CEO?

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Feel like a lot of great energy. There's nothing better about hearing a customer how much value he or she gets from the Armis product. Nothing better.

>> Yeah. I mean, that's just music to your ears. I can feel how good it makes you feel just sitting next to you right now. Okay. My favorite stat from the day was when I looked at your most recent press release this morning, explosive growth is an understatement. You have doubled ARR in less than-

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Less than....

>> 18 months, which is insane. Every company wants to do that. How did you do that? Why is the growth happening so quick right now since you've been around for so many years prior to this? Were you just waiting for this moment?

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Yeah. No, I think it's a combination of a lot of hard work by our team and a lot of great demand and that Armis is actually solving problems that they're top priority for security organizations, for IT organizations across the board, and that we are also always listening to the customer, what they really need from us. Our customer advisory board is a great organization that actually Nadir is doing so many great sessions there on what's the next also for Armis, not just the usage of the current products, but also what's next for Armis and this is how development is really directed to actual products. We are expanding to new products that our customers need them yesterday, and a lot of effort is going into that.

>> With the speed of innovation both on the nefarious actor side as well as on our good acting side, I think... I can't even imagine how quickly you have to work. Nadir, what does that feedback loop look like for you within the community? How are you getting that information? And I mean, given how successful you are right now, how are you staying one step ahead or at least in step with everything that's moving so fast?

Nadir Izrael

>> Oh, I think Yevgeny mentioned the whole listening. It's amazing how much listening can take you far, but I think also-

>> Louder for the folks in the back. Just general in the world, I feel like listening, indeed.

Nadir Izrael

>> Yes, listening really, really helps, but also I think that we managed to build a foundational critical element that we can expand on quite a bit. And I think through the guidance of all of these customers and partners, we've been able to tackle areas that before were considered the areas that are just extremely difficult, if not impossible to tackle.

>> Give me some examples.

Nadir Izrael

>> How many CISOs out there feel that they have a good handle and kind of a good asset inventory of everything? Check, we can do that. How many of them feel like they can actually do effective vulnerability management and actually tackle all the critical exposure that they have, all the different findings? These are all difficult problems to tackle, but that we're able to do very effectively and it shows in our growth, it shows in the success of the company. It shows in the trust that all of these organizations are willing to put in us, which is a truly humbling experience, but also something that we're very proud of in building this company.

>> I love hearing that, and they're obviously proud of it as your customers, if they're bragging about their experience to other customers. I mean, my goodness, talk about the best word of mouth marketing ever. Let's talk about how AI has factored in to this whole landscape for y'all. I can imagine it's been an interesting adjustment and you also have an offering, Armis Centrix. Tell me about that.

Nadir Izrael

>> Well, I think AI, we all understand that it's revolutionizing everything that we're doing. It's revolutionizing both the attackers or let's say the bad guys, but it's also revolutionizing the solutions and the things that the good guys or the defenders can provide. For us, it's been huge. I think that the entire platform has always had a heavy dose of, well, machine learning and AI, but I think ever since the last couple of years and how much generative AI and generally all the usage and all the adoption of that has really pushed forward the entire platform. Anything from being able to-

>>

Nadir Izrael

>> Yeah. Anything from being able to query and understand and understand the data coming back from Armis in a much better way, but also automation, remediation, lots of different things that come from this is completely changing the landscape of both our products as well as what our customers are doing.

>> I hadn't put two and two together here, which sounds silly. I'll call it a blonde moment, but your recent explosive growth, obviously GenAI, those timelines are very kind of in parallel. Do you think that that has accelerated the adoption or at least the awareness of the needs for your solution in the market?

Nadir Izrael

>> I think it has very much so, but I also think that in part it coincides also with the explosive growth of cyber attacks as well. GenAI is increasingly being used by attackers and so jump starting the entire industry, but also on our end, I think that the usage of GenAI and how much it can help teams be that much more efficient, that much more effective and scalable is huge.

>> How much of your... I think that's so important. How much of your role is educating your customers on even the types of risks that might be emerging in the new landscape?

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> I think in the beginning it was much more, but the more years pass and what we see across our five products right now that all these areas from the asset management, what Gartner would call Chasm, OT security, medical device security, vulnerability prioritization, remediation, active threat intelligence, those areas, when our teams are arriving to speak to customers, those are all top priority. This is something that there is a project on the way or at some point this is... or something is ongoing, always, this is... Imagine that those are the most critical environments. Imagine distribution centers, imagine airports, ports, utilities, like the green-

>> Critical infrastructure is what-

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Exactly....

>> you're talking about. Yeah.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Those are areas that are the most important to the board of directors. It's not just another document that somebody lost. It's about operations.

>> Right.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> It's about operations. If one distribution center goes down, it's hundreds of millions that the organization would lose. If a grid goes down, if an airport goes down, imagine what's happening.

>> I mean, just ask Delta.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> These are the areas that are the most critical, the most critical assets that are there in those environments, and these are the problems that we are solving. Let's talk about hospitals. Hospitals, theory, if medical devices go down or are not protected, same. When we talk about asset management, how can you do any effective security program if you don't know what you have across everything, every single asset, whether virtual, physical, cloud, code, OT, IOT, anything? If you don't have it, you cannot run an effective security program. So the way we are also expanding by product, as I said before, is also about customer demand. Customer demand, and what are top priorities for organizations to make their security program much more efficient, more value, more value to the board of directors, et cetera.

>> Well, and ensuring that the end user customer who might not even know about all the hard work you do doesn't have a gap in their positive customer experience. I mean, when these things happen, all eyes are on that company and it's a huge deal. I'm curious in terms of your approach, how much is defensive versus offensive security? How are you toggling that? Because I feel like as things increase in speed and then there's also... but you want to be in front of it, how do you toggle that in terms of a product development and feature creep?

Nadir Izrael

>> Well, I think for us, obviously we focus entirely on the defensive side, but it is about being a few steps ahead from any attackers or any offense. I think the good news is, and kind of going back to your comment about AI, is that AI on the defensive side always has one huge advantage over attackers, which is a home court advantage and the data advantage of knowing exactly how your environment looks like if you're able to capitalize on it. So we try to make that advantage count as much as possible, help the teams that day in, day out need to handle all of these different security incidents, do their work much faster, have a SOC team, for instance, know exactly and immediately what is the asset they're looking at, who owns it, who's using it, whose throat to choke, if you will, on the problem at hand, but do all of that in an effective manner to support their role. They have hard jobs and being able to support them in that fashion, being able to give them a 360 view of everything they need, that's what we're in business for.

>> I love that. Well, and there's so many different legacy systems, there's silos, there's all these little pockets of knowledge and data throughout organizations that I'm sure you're tying together into that layer of observability. What's your most poignant advice for companies trying to navigate the cybersecurity landscape right now because it's a little chaotic?

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> There's definitely a lot of companies. A lot of companies, and you see more and more always. I think the key is to really focus on solving real problems, real problems that are top priority for an organization and always do that validation again and again and again with different types of companies, different sizes of companies, different verticals. Always go again and validate and validate and validate all the time, and always question yourself. Make sure that you are solving that real, real problems for the customer, that something is top priority. This is something that if you don't do that, sometimes you fall in love in the product and not listening enough to the customer. This is something that at every stage, whether it's like 500K in revenue, 10 million, 50, million, hundred-

>> 200 million.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Yeah, exactly. You must always keep thinking like that. Keep listening to the customer and continue to make sure that you are solving something that is top priority.

>> Absolutely, and I like that. What I'm hearing from you is: don't get too comfortable.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Yeah. Exactly.

>> When you're back on your heels, you're not paying attention in the cybersecurity landscape.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Never. In my opinion, whether from the customer perspective and what are you solving, but also from a competitive perspective-

>> Absolutely....

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> you can never feel comfortable. If you'll feel comfortable, somebody will actually go and beat you, and you need to always be cautious. Always think how you are ahead, 18 months ahead on the product. And this is how Armis across all our products, not just as a platform, we are making sure that in each product, our product is 18 months ahead of the competition, and this is something that we always really push our product team.

>> Oh, and that's why you're doubling ARR every 18 months just like that. What's next then on the product development cycle? Yeah, I love it. That was... No pressure, no pressure. Nadir, what's next on the product development cycle?

Nadir Izrael

>> Well, I think that Armis is poised to really fill in and take over this entire very amorphous space of exposure management. I think that the world in many ways has, for the last decade or so, fallen in love with this concept of detection response. If you just put more detections in, you'll be able to catch cyber threat actors while they're in your system, and I think that things have changed and things are flipping around quite a bit into the stance of: it's not enough to just be reactive, you also have to proactively manage risk. And this is where Armis comes in. Armis is end-to-end a system that allows you to both understand your environment but also manage and reduce risk within it proactively. And not only is that a more cost-effective method, it's frankly a more effective method. If you don't have an exposure in the first place, there's nothing to breach and no one's going to be there in the first place. So I think that's-

>> Right. And that's what everybody wants.

Nadir Izrael

>> Exactly, yeah.

>> Yeah.

Nadir Izrael

>> And our roadmap is absolutely around that, around all the different product pillars that Yevgeny mentioned before and then some, and being able to give teams a holistic view of their entire risk and exposure space and how to manage that.

>> I mean, it sounds like a holistic end-to-end solution, which is honestly, and it sounds like you're a real ally when it comes to helping folks navigate that potential exposure. Is there anything, Yevgeny, I'm going to ask you, that you wish your potential customers knew about you that they don't know today?

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> I think that more and more about the platform that we are building, that it's not just one solution.

>> As single solution. Yeah.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Yeah, sometimes more. Sometimes somebody knows us as, okay, the IoT security, the OT security, the asset management, And sometimes there are cases, I would say that... Again, the only places where we are losing is where we are not invited to the dance, and this is the area that I can say personally, it's the most frustrating because we have an amazing solution in each of the product suites, but sometimes is like, "Oh, they're IoT security and they're asset management..." Like, "Okay, on the vulnerability prioritization, they just didn't think to invite us," and sometimes you come later. So really about our cyber exposure management platform and the five super competitive and AI driven products that... So everybody's aware of those capabilities, and we will work hard to show every customer that we have the best product that will bring the best value.

>> I love that. Well, first of all, I hope they're watching, so they saw that now and you're invited to any dance party that I'm at and hopefully all of the future dance parties of your customers. I have one final question and I would love for you both to answer it. Nadir, I'm going to start with you. You're both black hat veterans and obviously been working on Armis for a while. What do you hope to be able to say next year that you can't yet say it this year's show?

Nadir Izrael

>> Well, first of all, that we doubled again and you know...

>> I mean, obviously in 12 months this time instead of 14 or 18.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> We keep challenging that.

>> Love that.

Nadir Izrael

>> I would say that you guys kind of touched on this in the beginning, that there's a very special vibe to Black Hat. I don't know if it's the desert theme or just the fact that people are much more chill and casual and it's very fun to talk to a customer, not just through a Zoom, but over a beer or over kind of a-

>> Amen, brother.

Nadir Izrael

>> Exactly. Exactly. I think that every year we come here, we see our team, we see the dozens of different people who make this a success and the hundreds behind them around the world.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Yeah.

Nadir Izrael

>> We see all the different customers and partners here. We see all the people sort of assemble either at the Hazel lounge, where we're at or anywhere else.

>> All . I know I saw it going in the elevator. I was like, "I need to stop by there later today."

Nadir Izrael

>> I think just seeing that much more of that, that exponential growth of that is truly the most rewarding piece of this entire experience.

>> That was so sincere and authentic, I actually believe you. Yevgeny, what would you like to be able to say?

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Nadir said everything, but I would say that it's, again, to feel that next year we've made, again, huge progress across the board, whether when we talk about revenues, about customer satisfaction, about the products, the amount of products, and also the quality of the products. And again, also I would say you can measure the buzz around the company, and this is something that we also measure. It's not numbers, but it's also how you feel that when you hear and people talk and think about Armis is, again, a super leading platform and what we are working super hard here to make this as a generational business. This is something that I really want everybody to see and think this way.

>> I love it. Well, you've convinced me sitting here today, so great job. Yevgeny, Nadir, congratulations on the absolutely explosive growth. Obviously, reflective of your hard work and the great product that you've built. Really, appreciate y'all taking the time in what's a very busy vibe-y week for you to come hang out with me. Thanks.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> Thank you so much.

Nadir Izrael

>> Thank you so much.

Yevgeny Dibrov

>> It was a pleasure.

>> Yeah, and thank all of you for tuning in to our live coverage here at Black Hat in Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. My name's Savannah Peterson. You're watching theCUBE, the leading source for cybersecurity coverage.