Endpoint Security: Can Anyone Really Keep Us Safe?

Ever since the beginning of the 21st century, Cybersecurity has been an issue that many companies and individuals alike mull over from time to time. After all, given the rise of the internet and technology, it's hard not to wonder about the safety and security of our information online. In recent years, however, the interconnectivity of the internet and the world may have become more of a liability than an asset. Big companies from the Fortune 500s list  find themselves more fearful than ever that proprietary information may be leaked to the entire world. It is hard to imagine that large successful tech companies, often thought of as being the problem, could even have an enemy looking to take them down. It wasn’t until recently lawmakers and companies’ executives began to think on the same page. Government officials and the public eye have witnessed a series of high-profile hacks during the past year, ranging from the Solar Winds and Colonial Pipeline to the most recent hacking of semiconductor giant, NVIDIA. Until now, cybersecurity has been more of a quest than a certainty, with one thing being clear: adversaries are always seeking vectors to compromise targets with the most recent of methods. Some of the scariest include automating attacks using advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to find vulnerabilities and execute breaches (Brooks 2022). 

Several years ago, Biden’s entrance into the office resulted in increased spending on government programs. But I don’t think anyone could have anticipated how much money was needed to fight the prevailing winds of hackers. The concern of these companies is as valid as ever, given the prominence of malware and ransomware, which are now commonly used by hackers to exploit any well guarded operating system. Government bills passed so far under the Biden administration represent an effort to solve the cybersecurity crisis. However, these efforts demonstrate a clear lack of comprehension about how these breaches happen in the first place. In a study conducted by researchers at Stanford University, 88% of breaches occurred as employees who are not in security roles made innocuous mistakes. These careless mistakes often begin with clicking on phishing links. The government, for an unknown reason, has also failed to recognize that attacks today are multipronged, where the breaching of one organization influences many others as well. As noted above, these were the types of attacks observed primarily on software companies; Kaseya and SolarWinds were targeted to provide access to the organizations they served (Kleczynski 2021). The solution to this is to protect the supply chain by spanning regulations across industries and sectors. Government officials must be diligent and implement more effective laws relevant to the security community. Area in most need  is a 360-degree collaboration between law enforcement, government, and private industry. Members of the intelligence community should be brought in to educate companies in order to build a comprehensive understanding of the gaps in their security infrastructures, especially pertaining to attribution and arrest. Even with all of the recent attention to cyberattacks, this interdisciplinary collaboration is not happening now. And unless it does, the cybersecurity industry will continue to be left in crisis (Kleczynski 2021). 

Implementation of endpoint security could be a solution. When thinking about endpoint security, government officials and company executives should think only one thing, CrowdStrike. CrowdStrike specializes in endpoint and cloud workload protection. Its platform comprises 21 software-as-a-service modules, each of which helps clients safeguard devices and applications across on-premise, virtualized, and cloud-based environments. A specialty of CrowdStrike is their ability to provide security assessment and incident response services. This service helps companies to identify their vulnerabilities and resolve active cyberattacks. Given the nature of CrowdStrike's product being a cloud-based platform, this readily enables the use of artificial intelligence to identify security threats. The company crowd-sources data from all of its customers and then inputs this data into a database called the “Threat Graph”. Using this data, it analyzes and builds solutions to stop similar threats and breaches at all its customer sites. CrowdStrike’s ability to identify and stop breaches in a matter of minutes makes it the fastest in the current market. From a financial perspective, CrowdStrike's customer base is rapidly expanding, from having roughly 450 customers at the end of its fiscal 2017 and growing to 9,896  at the end of fiscal 2021. At the end of fiscal Q3 2022, CrowdStrike recorded a total of 14,687 customers, representing year-over-year growth of 75%. The company has an elite level dollar-based net retention rate that has been above 120% since its initial public offering. Additionally, a Year-over-year subscription revenue growth in Q3 came in at 70%. CrowdStrike had a gross margin at 76% in fiscal 2021 and fiscal Q3 2022, leading to a remarkable third  quarter free cash flow of $124 million. From these numbers, we can extrapolate that the general thesis of cybersecurity is now much accelerated and does not show any signs of stopping, as remote work and digital transformation have made effective protection a necessity. The rise of cloud computing, the proliferation of connected devices, and the digitization of various business processes have all contributed to an uptick in attacks. And, the numbers are continuing to rise. Damages inflicted by cybercrime totaled $3 trillion in 2015, and it is predicted to reach $6 trillion in 2021 and $10.5 trillion by 2025, according to Cybersecurity Ventures. CrowdStrike states that its market revenue is increasing, from $25 billion in 2019 to $55 billion today to an expected $67 billion in 2024 with its existing products. With new products included, it is set to reach $116 billion in revenue by 2025. 

A great question might arise when thinking about cybersecurity; Why CrowdStrike? Why not another endpoint security provider? Personally, I found that when I was able to understand the dynamics within the cybersecurity protection industry, I realized a lot of companies are serving the need for endpoint security, but the important difference to note is that CrowdStrike was the first. Let's look at an example. Say we have two customers. A very small business and a Fortune 500 company. If the smaller business experiences a cyberattack, due to their weaker protection from lower budgets, and if both companies are customers of CrowdStrike, then the smaller business being attacked, indirectly protects the Fortune 500. This also happens if roles were reversed. Every attack on any customer of CrowdStrike allows for every part of CrowdStrikes system to get stronger and better. This idea can be compared to Tesla’s, “more miles driven theory”. The system gets stronger the more attacks that it encounters. Along with that, this protection system grows at an exponential rate because as more companies use their system, the data collection process amplifies and the effect compounds overtime. This is the key to what really differentiates CrowdStrike from any other cyber security company; they just keep getting stronger the more attacks that they fend off until they are as agile as the hackers. This fast learning and vast spread of information allows the company to anticipate the attackers’ thoughts and actions as well. 

When evaluating where government funds and company funding should be spent, the fund should be directed to everlasting companies and companies that will be needed regardless of the changes in economic markets. This involves investing money in ideas and companies that are vital to keeping companies afloat even through threatening attacks. The company with that vision right now is CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ: CRWD). When thinking about these investments that hold mission-critical traits, nothing is quite as mission-critical as protecting companies from cyber-attacks. CrowdStrike’s scale is simply massive. CrowdStrike estimates the company processes over one trillion bytes of data a day.  Having over 21 different tools to choose from, their customer base now represents nearly half the Fortune 500 companies. Regarding customer growth rate, just before COVID over 1,800 customers used five or more modules and now over 8,000 users. This information on the growth of CrowdStrike in all aspects indicates only positives in their potential and success they could and do have. CrowdStrike is a company that has customers come in and hooked through the increased understanding of how important their work is. CrowdStrikes’ growth is likely in the beginning stages. 

References

KleczynskiMarcin, M. (2021). New Regulation Won’t Plug the Nation’s Cybersecurity Leaks. Barron's. Retrieved 2021, from https://www.barrons.com/articles/bidens-cybersecurity-orders-malwarebytes-ceo-51634745211?st=cdb0ybsz01bqluk&reflink=article_email_sharehttps://www.barrons.com/articles/bidens-cybersecurity-orders-malwarebytes-ceo-51634745211?st=cdb0ybsz01bqluk&reflink=article_email_share 

Brooks, C. (2022). New Antitrust Legislation Could Open the Door to Cybersecurity Problems. Barron's. Retrieved 2022, from https://www.barrons.com/articles/new-antitrust-legislation-could-open-the-door-to-cybersecurity-problems-51643664301?st=v0eummfurqd9b4e&r 

Uberti, D. (2022). Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Banks Hit by Suspected Cyberattacks, Officials Say. Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2022, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukrainian-defense-ministry-banks-hit-by-suspected-cyberattacks-oficials-say-11644960352 

CrowdStrike. (2021). Corporate Overview . Austin. 

Crowdstrike . (2022). 2022 Global Threat Report: Adversary and Tradecraft Highlights. Austin, Texas.