Iron Bow and GuardSight are Teaming Up to Help Customers Fortify Their Cybersecurity

As you may have seen in the news, Iron Bow recently announced the acquisition of GuardSight Inc. to help bolster the company’s cybersecurity portfolio. What will this partnership look like? How will this union benefit our strategic partners? What can customers expect moving forward?  

Rene LaVigne, President and CEO of Iron Bow Technologies and John McGloughlin, Founder of GuardSight Inc. sat down for a tell all Q&A to give an inside look into the acquisition, share their thoughts about the future, and answer some of the most pressing questions for our customers and community.  

What do we need to know about GuardSight and what differentiates them from other companies? 

GuardSight specializes in providing proactive cybersecurity with a team of military, government intelligence, and enterprise security professionals that detect and respond beyond the endpoint to stop sophisticated attacks earlier and more effectively. GuardSight professionals align with their client operations teams to build unified visibility and control across the hybrid enterprise including endpoints, networks, and the cloud. 

“Cyber is about trust,” McGloughlin said. “At GuardSight, we pride ourselves on having a ‘warrior culture’ built on a deep level of trust amongst our teams and with our customers. We’re ready to roll up our sleeves to fight the bad guys and bring a unique systematic approach to threat detection, threat hunting, and response. We have unique tactical specialization and will be a force multiplier to combat cyber aggressors.” 

What are the primary challenges customers are facing that prompted this partnership? 

The number of cyber vulnerabilities has dramatically increased across all industries, and the market is oversaturated with point solutions to address them. At the same time, there is a serious shortage of trained talent to help address rapidly evolving cyberthreats.  

“We’re seeing increased vulnerabilities in the customer community,” said LaVigne. “They’re looking for all options available to them to shore up their infrastructure. At the same time, they’re struggling to supplement cyber talent and protect themselves independently.” 

“From the operational perspective, you have an oversaturation of tooling and weaponry and a workforce supply shortage,” McGloughlin said. “Yes, you’ll need the right weapons, but you also need a tactical force to take on the enemy, which is why cyber can’t be viewed as discretionary spend that results in piecemeal solutions. These challenges aren’t going away, they’re only getting bigger.” 

“For us, this is an important opportunity to provide a more holistic managed security solution to our customers,” LaVigne added. 

How will Iron Bow’s and GuardSight’s cybersecurity portfolios align? 

The acquisition will enhance Iron Bow’s existing cybersecurity solutions portfolio, combining its public-sector cybersecurity engineering expertise with GuardSight’s private-sector SECOPS and MDR capabilities. With GuardSight, Iron Bow will provide a more holistic cybersecurity offering that enables government agencies, private enterprises, and organizations to modernize their cybersecurity architecture while providing a comprehensive set of managed services that support the path to zero trust. 

“Iron Bow has the foremost, highest-level security architects in place,” said LaVigne. “We’re capable of assessing our customers’ comprehensive security postures and providing them invaluable consultative advice. The addition of GuardSight will give us a remote managed solution that strengthens our overall security practice, supports the high-level consultancy we offer, and bolsters our customers’ security postures.” 

“Whereas Iron Bow is strategic, GuardSight is tactical,” said McGloughlin. “We knew Iron Bow would succeed at strategy and we are confident in our tactical capabilities and knew it would be a great match. Cyber is fragmented, but with one team that’s empowered you get continuity with downrange vision and protection. There’s also strength in numbers and we’ll be that force multiplier for Iron Bow.”  

What confirmed Iron Bow and GuardSight would merge well together? 

In addition to the capabilities that will allow Iron Bow to double down on the commitment to provide the strongest cyber defense posture possible, shared values and culture were a huge selling point. 

“At GuardSight, we’re a warrior culture soaked in value creation and operational excellence,” McGloughlin said. “We focus on sustained commitment to execution and ownership. With Iron Bow, we instantly knew that our cultures would align, and we’d be a good family.” 

“Their culture fits right in with our culture,” LaVigne said. “GuardSight is very mission-oriented with respect to customer outcomes we’re trying to drive. And just like us, they’re ready to fight the good fight in every way possible. Additionally, they have the entrepreneurial spirit that compliments ours well.” 

What can customers and partners expect from Iron Bow and GuardSight moving forward? 

There is much to gain from our continued evolution of holistic security ops-as-a-service solutions, managed detection and response - all with Zero Trust built in. Beyond that, our team, partners and customers will benefit from our new Cyber Academy where we  will develop and groom talent for our cyber workforces across private, healthcare, and government markets. 

According to Fortune’s coverage of the 2022 (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study, the cybersecurity workforce still has a global shortage of 3.4 million professionals. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 700,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs.  

“The need for cybersecurity professionals has been growing rapidly, with the number of unfilled cyber jobs doubling just over this past decade,” LaVigne said. “With this new cyber academy, we will be able to provide a pathway not only for current employees who want to advance their cyber careers, but also for industry and younger talent as part of the NextGen workforce. We hope that this cyber academy will help address the shortage of cyber talent so that our customers can continue to evolve and fortify their postures even as the threat landscape evolves.” 

Want to learn more? Check out the latest in the news here. Ready to fortify your data and systems? Visit www.ironbow.com/solutions-cybersecurity.