The sudden demise of Norse Security has left many vendors and information security professionals in the industry wondering what happened. Brian Krebs wrote in detail about the activities that led up to Norse shuttering its operations over the weekend of January 30.
SC Magazine has also weighed in with an article focused on "...looking at lessons that can be learned from the collapse of a company that was until recently considered one of the fastest-growing threat intelligence companies."
The article quotes Paul Mockapetris, chief scientist at ThreatSTOP and inventor of the Domain Name System (DNS) saying: ...the situation is a “wake-up call” to figure out what products actually work. However, he doesn't believe consumers will be able to determine the products and services that are most effective. “The analyst community and journalists are going to need to ask the hard questions,” he said. For instance, last year Norse was placed on the industry's Cybersecurity 500 list."
The SC Magazine article concludes with a second statement from Mockapetris at ThreatSTOP: ...he expects cybersecurity will continue to attract investors. Speaking with SCMagazine.com, he said, “The fact that investors pour so much money into cyber companies proves that it's an unmet need.”
Mockapetris has spoken about the difference between security companies doing well financially, vs those that do good. Companies of all sizes are continuously under attack and need solutions from vendors they can trust. A few high-flying, free wheeling security vendors may be giving information security professionals the wrong impression. Vendors that are led by true security industry veterans and contribute to the larger security community continue to innovate and deliver effective defenses against attacks.