The Cybersecurity Stories that Defined 2024 in the Channel

More than ever, cybersecurity posture is an incredibly important aspect of the IT channel, with wide-ranging implications. As we continue to generate colossal amounts of data, protecting systems and clients has become a challenging task that requires partnerships, new emerging solutions, and acquisitions to overcome such a challenge.

Over the course of 2024, there have been major instances of companies addressing cybersecurity challenges through various means, as well as one company making amends for a major lapse in cybersecurity.

Let’s take a look at a few key stories that helped paint the cybersecurity landscape in 2024 to better understand where it may head in the next year.

CrowdStrike undoing damage from outage

CrowdStrike Apologizes on the Hill, Overhauls Rollout Procedures

One of the most significant security stories of the year has to do with the fallout of the 2023 IT outage from CrowdStrike caused by a defective update to its Falcon platform. The cybersecurity giant found itself on Capitol Hill earlier this year to discuss the outage that caused mass system crashes worldwide impacting payment services, airlines, hospitals, and others.

Testifying before a U.S. House Homeland Security subcommittee, senior vice president of Counter Adversary Operations at CrowdStrike Adam Meyers said that the company has implemented “more oversight” to prevent another outage.

“We are deeply sorry this happened and we are determined to prevent this from happening again. We have undertaken a full review of our systems and begun implementing plans to bolster our content update procedures so that we emerge from this experience as a stronger company,” Meyers said.

Microsoft Releases Repair Options for CrowdStrike Outage

Prior to that testimony, Microsoft released an update that included a free recovery tool designed to streamline the repair process to recover from the CrowdStrike outage.

The tool that was introduced automates recovery from the blue-screen-of-death experienced by many users following the incident.

“As a follow-up to the CrowdStrike Falcon agent issue impacting Windows clients and servers, Microsoft has released an updated recovery tool with two repair options to help IT admins expedite the repair process,” said Microsoft in a blog post.

American Water Faces Cyber Breach

New Jersey-based utility company, American Water, fell victim to a digital security breach in the fall of this year, leading the company to take precautionary measures.

On Oct. 3, the company discovered suspicious activities on its computer networks and systems. The largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the U.S., which serves over 14 million people across 14 states and 18 military bases, proactively took their MyWater system offline, meaning they paused billing until they could bring their systems back on safely and securely.

At the time, the company didn’t have reason to suspect the cyber incident adversely affected their water or wastewater facilities or operations.

“This activity has since been determined to be the result of a cybersecurity incident,” the company said in a statement. “In an effort to protect our customers’ data and to prevent any further harm to our environment, we disconnected or deactivated certain systems. We proactively took MyWater offline, which means we are pausing billing until further notice. We are working diligently to bring these systems back online safely and securely.”

Millions Exposed in Snowflake Data Breach

A significant data breach targeting two million Advance Auto Parts customers in April triggered scrutiny of the cloud computing-based data company’s security practices.

In a filing to the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, Advance Auto Parts discovered that a third party had accessed data stored in Snowflake, their cloud storage and data warehousing provider. After an investigation, the automotive parts provider found unauthorized access or copied information maintained by the company from April 14 to May 24.

In response to the breach, Snowflake announced that administrators can now make multifactor authentication (MFA) mandatory and monitor compliance with a new policy.

Cisco Unveils Hypershield: Its Radical New Approach to Cybersecurity

Multinational digital communications conglomerate, Cisco, introduced a new cybersecurity solution earlier this year, which executives of the corporation touted as “the most consequential” security announcement in 40 years of the company.

Cisco’s Hypershield is a software-based approach to protecting applications, devices, and data across public and private data centers, clouds, and physical locations.

“Cisco Hypershield is one of the most significant security innovations in our history,” said Cisco’s chair and CEO, Chuck Robbins. “With our data advantage and strength in security, infrastructure, and observability platforms, Cisco is uniquely positioned to help our customers harness the power of AI.”

According to Cisco, Hypershield functions as a fabric that enables security enforcement to be placed where it is needed, from applications and Kubernetes clusters to network ports.

Deep Instinct Unveils Zero-Day Security Solution for Amazon S3 on AWS

Recently, cybersecurity company, Deep Instinct, unveiled a zero-day security solution for Amazon S3 on AWS. The solution utilizes deep learning to prevent malware in AWS cloud storage.

“Businesses should not have to sacrifice data security for business continuity. We build DSX Cloud – Amazon S3 to rapidly detect malware before it impacts production environments,” said Yariv Fishman, Chief Product Officer at Deep Instinct. “Now, cloud security and business application teams can uphold the highest security standards in their enterprise S3 environments to confidently collaborate, innovate, and grow their business, without worrying about the next threat.”

DSX for Cloud – Amazon S3 is available in the AWS Marketplace and extends DSX Cloud’s threat prevention capabilities to data stored within Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets.

Cognizant Neuro AI Cybersecurity Platform Enhances Risk Management

As AI has become more and more pervasive across the channel, security solutions that are AI-powered are becoming more prevalent at nearly a commensurate rate.

Cognizant Neuro is doing its part to participate in this trend by introducing its AI-powered cybersecurity platform, Cognizant Neuro Cybersecurity. This solution is designed to amplify cybersecurity resilience by integrating and orchestrating point cybersecurity solutions across the enterprise.

“As cybersecurity challenges become increasingly sophisticated and threats more acute, enterprises must adapt continually to remain a step ahead of threat actors,” said Annadurai Elango, EVP and global head of core technology and insights at Cognizant. “CISOs are facing more risks than ever, and need a tool that can help reduce risk exposure, orchestrate across their security stack, and support comprehensive security coverage at enterprise scale. Cognizant Neuro Cybersecurity is designed with these goals in mind.”

Proofpoint’s Normalyze Deal Tackles Cloud Security Crisis

Elsewhere, mergers and acquisitions have been a consistent theme in the cybersecurity space. Many organizations don’t have the resources to develop security arms, but still understand how important layering cybersecurity on top of their products and solutions can be. This is where bringing in security experts helps.

Proofpoint, seeking to enhance its data security platform, made an acquisition this year of Normalyze, a data-first security company. With Normalyze’s AI-powered tech, Proofpoint will be able to bolster its security platform and assist clients with spotting, categorizing, and locking down their data across multiple environments, such as SaaS apps, public clouds, private servers, or a blend of them.

TD SYNNEX Expands Broadcom Partnership for Security Solutions

Throughout the year, various organizations have developed new solutions and new partnership agreements to provide the best services possible.

Among those is TD SYNNEX who is expanding its partnership with Broadcom, broadening its security portfolio through the Americas. TD SYNNEX will own the complete go-to-market strategy and customer relationships for Broadcom’s Symantec and Carbon Black portfolios in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and North America (excluding U.S. State & Local Government and Education Accounts).

“Expanding our Broadcom Aggregator offerings to include Carbon Black and CA Technologies solutions across Latin America enables us to leverage our local market knowledge and connect partners with the right solutions for their business,” said Marcos Murata, Vice President, Vendor Management and Business Strategy, TD SYNNEX in LAC in a press release.

Sophos to Acquire Secureworks in $859M Cybersecurity Deal

Among the major acquisitions in 2024 was the multimillion dollar cybersecurity deal involving Sophos acquiring Secureworks.

The $859 million deal will see Sophos acquire the security company to boost its cybersecurity platform with Secureworks’ XDR (extended detection and response) capabilities. The all-cash purchase of Secureworks is expected to be completed in early 2025.

“Secureworks offers an innovative, market-leading solution with their Taegis XDR platform,” said Sophos CEO Joe Levy. “Combined with our security solutions and industry leadership in MDR, we will strengthen our collective position in the market and provide better outcomes for organizations of all sizes globally.”

With 2024 coming to a close, Channel Insider is looking back at the year in the channel and the developments that defined the year. Read more here about the partnerships and strategic moves that came from one of the channel’s biggest names.