Written by Dan Robbins.
This month ComputerWorld was invited out to Bucharest to spend a few days with Bitdefender at their Annual Global Summit, where we saw a glimpse into the inner workings of the world’s best Antivirus and their roadmap for the future. I actually stumble at the first hurdle here as Bitdefender have carved out their own niche within this space being the clear winner of ordinary threats. To call themselves an ‘Antivirus’ technology business seems to undermine what they do as it is so much more than just protecting the end user from the inevitable viruses that are primed and ready to take down your business from within, folder by folder, client by client.
I think it is more fitting to say ‘Threat Detection Technology’ considering the considerable advances they have over their competitors within the space. The time when a Virus was sent via an email or by a dodgy web page – although the threat is still there – is not the main worry that IT Managers have, as any cheap AV product can protect you on this. Nowadays, the issues are the type of viruses that are being created on an almost daily basis which even the largest companies have succumbed to in recent months. Cyber criminals are smarter and the typical game of cat and mouse needs to be changed – welcome Bitdefender!
The keynote talk and highlight of the three day event was given by the Head of the Cyber Intelligence Unit of Romania, who’s name I cannot pronounce. He explained some of the emerging threats, namely Ransomware which is thought to be a relatively new concept but it has in fact been around since the 80’s. These are now being targeted to companies and they are willing to pay. The UK is now of the most vulnerable to this and people are paying upwards of £600 a time to gain control of their systems again. He noted that most of these are from China, which has targeted the West over 1.2 million times over the past few months alone!
Also, thanks to the very publically shutting down of Silk Road, everyone now knows of the dark web. A veritable hub of filth and despair only visited by the evil and true criminals in the world to trade Guns, Drugs and Child abuse pictures. It was interesting to see that Bitdefender, unbeknown to most the world, has been fighting this battle alongside the FBI, Interpol and other global intelligence agencies to find the IP addresses of these masked criminals and bring them to justice. Something the speaker praised and noted how importance the relationship was between them and Bitdefender.
With two solid days of talks from all areas of the business – New VP’s, the Developers, Marketing and Sales teams from around the globe, it is easy to see that 2016 is going to be huge for them. With the internal announcement of three new game changing technologies – which I have strict instructions not to talk about on here just yet – that will put Bitdefender on the map and achieve their goal of moving up from Visionary to Leader on the Gartner Magic Quadrant, becoming the Number 1 vendor of choice within the Enterprise Space globally and with it, a household name. Keep your eyes out over the forth coming months for the tech previews.
Bitdefender were the first vendor to develop their technology on hybrid infrastructures, many have copied and many have failed. With the few that have managed to develop a true hybrid compatible software, it has nowhere near the speed or power. The Performance, Protection and Management Console (a single pane of glass across all devices covered (Virtual, Physical, Mobile etc) beats every other player in the space hands down. Intertwine that with their level of Functionality, Usability and Policy Admin you can really see why their plans of global domination are going to succeed – and with 167% growth in the UK, 40% in the USA I cannot see why this will not happen and to a more deserved company.
We were also presented with the award for the project of the year.
It was a great honour to win this title for the second year running and we look forward to our partnership and work with Bitdefender in the future.
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