Home SMART 100 2016 MailGuard Hybrid AI (Artificial Intelligence)

MailGuard Hybrid AI (Artificial Intelligence) [SMART 100, 2016]

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This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.

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1. THE BEGINNING

This innovation initially came to life when…

Businesses began experiencing a rapid increase in the volume of highly targeted and socially engineered malicious email, like phishing, malware and spam.
It became clear that the old way of doing things would not match the pace of emerging threats. Cyber criminals move quickly, relying upon the element of surprise. Attacks can be almost instantaneous but traditional antivirus solutions take hours or days to protect customers. During that window of exposure, criminals iterate on attacks to avoid detection. For example; an AusPost scam in March 2016, included 160+ iterations during a 3hr window. A predictive artificially intelligent response was needed.

2. WHAT & HOW

The purpose of this innovation is to…

Stop fast-breaking cyber attacks. MailGuard’s Hybrid AI Engines detect and prevent attacks 2-48hrs ahead of the market. This implementation of AI in a cloud architecture is at the forefront of our responsiveness, providing immediate protection to customers across 27 countries.

It does this by…

Combining feeds from global best practise antivirus security vendors, with locally tuned rules established in a unified console that enables bespoke implementations for every customer. Over time new threats are fed into the system which learns and adapts to anticipate and predict emerging threats. These learnings are then shared across other instances to improve the performance of the entire network.

3. PURPOSE & BENEFITS

This innovation improves on what came before because…

Many of the threats in the market today are automated. The traditional approach of identifying threats, releasing antivirus signatures, releasing a patch and deploying to customers is outdated and slow. Not to mention it can’t keep pace with the following iterations as they hit inboxes. MailGuard’s Hybrid AI engines are predicting, learning and anticipating new threats as they begin circulating.

Its various benefits to the customer/end-user include…

Protection against financial and data loss, diminished investor and consumer confidence, and business disruption. Nine-out-of-ten enterprises report impacts from phishing attacks and losses from individual attacks range from AU$200k-1.5M. 60% of businesses who experience a cyber-attack are out-of-business within 6-months.

4. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

In the past, this problem was solved by…

Manually identifying threats as they emerged, releasing antivirus signatures, creating a patch and deploying to customers. This approach was reactive. It can’t keep pace with fast-breaking threats and subsequent iterations as they’re hitting inboxes. The old approach was also rigid and not scalable, demanding a large volume of resources to cope with the volume of new threats hitting the market.

Its predecessors/competitors include…

Leading anti-virus engines like global AV giants like Symantec™, Sophos™, McAfee™ and Kaspersky™. A cloud-based Software-as-a-Services (SaaS) solution, MailGuard is interchangeable and stackable with other leading anti-virus engines, which is a unique competitive advantage while giving businesses the protection needed.

5. TARGET MARKET

It is made for…

Both private enterprise and government sectors who are looking for advanced cyber-security services. Private enterprise generates 92% of MailGuard’s revenues. The Australian spend in IT is expected to reach US$49.4B by 2016. By scanning identifiable company domains, MailGuard monitors market share, which it estimates as 14.5% in AU.
The global security SaaS market is estimated to be worth US$3.1 billion in 2015 and forecast to hit US$4.13 billion by 2017. It is predicted that the top three most sought-after cloud services moving forward will remain email security, web security services and identity and access management (IAM).

It is available for sale through…

Direct sales channels including the company website, a field and phone sales team, as well as a Managed Partner and Reseller Network of 500+ partners.

Our marketing strategy is to…

Focus on client retention in the private sector, pricing disruption and targeting the AU & US enterprise and government sectors, profiling MX records to identify prospect relationships with competitors, security characteristics and needs.
Particular acquisition opportunities exist in leveraging strategic partnerships with Zimbra (3rd largest global provider of hosted email, estimated at 100M+), Telstra, and a global partnership with Xero.

FINE PRINT: This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.