Regional Sales Engineer - AI Security, AI Detection Response

CrowdStrike & CyberCert back SMB1001 for small firms. Wed, 7th Oct 2026 (Today) CrowdStrike has partnered with CyberCert to provide cybersecurity and certification support to small and medium-sized businesses in Australia and New Zealand, with a focus on readiness for the SMB1001 cybersecurity standard. The partnership combines CrowdStrike's Falcon platform with CyberCert's certification services, giving managed security services partners a way to package security monitoring and certification support for smaller business customers. Under the arrangement, managed providers can offer Falcon-based services alongside help for clients seeking SMB1001 certification. For a limited period, qualifying customers and managed security services partners will also be able to access complimentary SMB1001 certification credits. CyberCert describes SMB1001 as a multi-level cybersecurity certification framework for small and midsized businesses. It is intended to help those businesses assess their cyber posture and improve it over time. The partnership targets a part of the market that often lacks dedicated security teams and specialist expertise, despite facing many of the same cyber risks as larger organisations. Vendors and service providers have increasingly focused on smaller businesses as attacks on supply chains and outsourced providers have widened the range of potential entry points for attackers. Channel focus The companies are positioning the offering through managed security services partners rather than selling certification support directly to end customers. That approach reflects the role of service providers in the small business market, where external partners often manage security tools, compliance work and operational support. For CrowdStrike, the deal adds a certification pathway to its partner-led security offering in Australia and New Zealand. For CyberCert, it expands the channels through which SMB1001 can reach smaller businesses that already rely on managed providers for cyber defence. Jon Fox, Vice President of Channels and Alliances, CrowdStrike Japan and Asia Pacific, said smaller firms were under growing pressure from attackers using artificial intelligence. "SMBs face increasingly sophisticated AI threats without the security resources of the world's largest enterprises," said Jon Fox, Vice President of Channels and Alliances, CrowdStrike Japan and Asia Pacific. "Together with CyberCert, we're giving MSSPs a powerful way to bring enterprise-grade, AI-native protection to more SMBs while helping customers advance their cybersecurity maturity." Certification path CyberCert said SMB1001 is designed specifically for smaller organisations and is recognised by insurers, enterprises and governments. Standards of this kind can help businesses show customers, supply-chain partners and underwriters that they have taken formal steps to manage cyber risk. The new arrangement links that certification process with outsourced security services, a model that may appeal to businesses without internal security staff. It also gives managed providers a way to add assessment and certification work to existing endpoint, cloud or identity security services. Ryan Ettridge, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CyberCert, said the link between cyber defence and standards compliance was becoming more important for smaller companies. "Today's threat landscape demands SMBs strengthen their cybersecurity while keeping pace with evolving standards," said Ryan Ettridge, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CyberCert. "By partnering with CrowdStrike, we're enabling MSSPs to help SMBs progress toward SMB1001 certification while building stronger cyber defences with the Falcon platform." The announcement highlights how cybersecurity suppliers are increasingly bundling technology, advisory support and formal standards work into partner-led offers for smaller businesses, which often need to balance cost pressures with customer and insurer demands for stronger cyber controls.

CyberKnight strengthens zero trust ecosystem at GISEC Global 2026 with dual industry awards and more. CyberKnight Technologies concluded a landmark three days at GISEC Global 2026 at Expo City Dubai. The company brought 16 technology vendors together under one integrated Zero Trust strategy, signed strategic MOUs with Harness and Asimily, launched the region's first Women in Cybersecurity series, received an official award from Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity for the UAE Government, and celebrated its ecosystem with an exclusive Gala Dinner. The stand at GISEC was among the most distinctive at the event, featuring dedicated zones across five security pillars: * AI driven SOC automation and threat detection (CrowdStrike, Swimlane, NetWitness, Group-IB) * Data protection and quantum readiness (Certes Networks) * Operational cyber resilience (Rezilens, Immersive, CounterCraft) * Identity security and Zero Trust access (Netwrix, Appgate) * Application security, OT, IoT and cyber physical resilience (Harness, Invicti, Xage Security, Forescout, Asimily, SolarWinds). "Our role is not simply to put more cybersecurity products into the market. Security teams already have enough technology to manage. The real challenge is making those technologies work together so customers can move from identifying a risk to governing it, containing it, and recovering from it. That is where our Zero Trust approach helps customers operationalise resilience, not just buy more tools", Wael Jaber, Chief Strategy Officer, CyberKnight Technologies. Two strategic distribution agreements were formalised on the show floor. The first expanded CyberKnight's DevSecOps and application security portfolio through a partnership with Harness, following Harness's acquisition of Traceable. The second, an MOU with Asimily, strengthened the company's cyber asset and exposure management capabilities across IT, IoT, OT, and IoMT environments. CyberKnight entered GISEC with recognition from two key partners. CrowdStrike presented its Aspiring Star Award in acknowledgment of rapid regional growth and expanding Falcon platform adoption, while Group-IB named the company Distributor of the Year 2025 META for outstanding performance across enterprise and government customers. Together the two awards reflect the confidence the vendor community places in CyberKnight's ability to grow markets and build ecosystems across the Middle East and Africa. On the community front, the company launched its Women in Cybersecurity series at GISEC - a long term initiative bringing together senior women leaders from across the vendor ecosystem to advance diversity, mentorship, and leadership in the region's cybersecurity industry. Separately, CyberKnight received an official participation award presented by Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, Head of Cybersecurity for the UAE Government, accepted by Avinash Advani, Founder and CEO, and Swapna Nair, Director of Marketing. "GISEC 2026 was a defining moment for CyberKnight. The partnerships we announced, the recognition we received, and the community we brought together reflect the trust our ecosystem places in us. We leave more committed than ever to delivering world class cybersecurity capabilities to the Middle East and Africa", Swapna Nair, Director Marketing, CyberKnight Technologies. CyberKnight concluded its participation with an exclusive Gala Dinner bringing together customers, partners, and industry leaders from across the region. Two of its strategic vendors were recognised with top honours, with CrowdStrike receiving the Vendor of the Year award and SolarWinds being named Revenue Growth Champion. Image Credit: CyberKnight

AI agent security startups flood market as CISOs battle new vendor sprawl. The phrase "AI sprawl" has become a staple of tech conversations and executive strategy discussions as organizations begin rolling out AI agents at scale. Yet for CISOs tasked with securing countless agents suddenly active across their networks, a different kind of sprawl is emerging: an influx of vendors promising to help. A quick scan of public Crunchbase and PitchBook listings reveals at least two dozen companies offering some flavor of AI agent security. Some focus on vetting the tools agents rely on, others aim to help businesses govern what data their agents can access. Still others, such as CrowdStrike, are developing detection and response controls on the devices where agents operate, while a further group concentrates on identifying and remediating unauthorized AI usage. The offerings naturally vary, but their pitches around discovering and governing agents tend to sound remarkably alike - featuring knowledge graphs, continuous monitoring, runtime security, tool access, MCP vetting, and similar capabilities. Some vendors are even retooling their products to ride the wave. Until last year, AI security startup Reco primarily sold software for mapping and protecting SaaS and AI platforms. It has since repositioned itself around a broader solution that leverages a context graph to link agents with apps, people, accounts, and permissions - giving security teams visibility into what an agent can reach and the ability to revoke access it doesn't require. According to Reco co-founder and CEO Ofer Klein, the most significant shift over the past year that pushed the startup to widen its focus was that companies are building and deploying AI agents faster than they can track them. At one Fortune 100 customer, he noted, Reco's platform uncovered 21,000 agents the company was unaware of. At a large financial services customer, the startup claims it identified an agent created by a former employee that could access Salesforce and share that data with a domain the company couldn't see. Klein isn't the only one emphasizing how urgent it is for companies to secure this sprawl. Chris Sestito, co-founder and CEO of security startup HiddenLayer, told me earlier this month that once agents reach production, the scale of their costs and risks shifts from theoretical to "full scale really quickly," and that more than 50 of his customers have AI agents in production interacting with critical systems and sensitive assets. Another AI startup, Cymphony, said that at one U.S. public company, it discovered roughly 85,000 files that had become accessible to AI tools and agents. There's little question that a great many investors are eager to back companies that can profit from helping businesses find and secure all these agents, and Reco has tapped into that demand: the startup announced Tuesday that it raised $55 million, adding to a $30 million Series B from February. AT&T, a customer, participated in the extension through its venture arm, alongside Forestay and Quadrille Capital. Klein said the company's valuation has "more than doubled" since the Series B was first announced in February, and he loosely placed it in the "high hundreds of millions" range, though he declined to share specifics. Annual recurring revenue currently sits in the "double-digit millions of dollars," he said, and he expects it to triple this year. The startup has over 100 customers, with financial services firms making up roughly 40% of the business. Reco's wager, it seems, is that its existing coverage of SaaS apps - and the AI agents those apps increasingly provide - will help it differentiate itself from competitors. The company currently integrates with more than 280 apps, and Klein says new integrations can be added within days. He explained that the platform uses browser and network signals to detect agents outside the apps it connects to directly within companies, and it includes controls for inspecting prompts and tool calls. The startup will direct the new funding toward hiring, sales, partnerships, and customer support. This latest round brings Reco's total capital raised to $140 million.