SonicWall’s Bob VanKirk Introduces SonicPlatform

This is Textron tv. Hey, everyone. Welcome back here to techron tv.

Wow, what a, what a honor I have today. I, I'm going to introduce for the first time here on Techron tv. Bob Van Kirk.

Bob is the president and CEO of SonicWall. Bob, welcome to Text Drunk tv. It's our pleasure and honor to have you on.

Alan, it's an honor to be on with you, uh, today. Thanks for including me, Truly. All righty.

So, so, Bob, look, I, I'm in security a long time. I know SonicWall a very, very long time, de years out in the, and everything else, right? Um, but before we jump into SonicWall, I always like to give people a sense, how did you wind up here as president and CEO?

When did you come on board? Kinda what's your journey look like? Yeah.

Great. Well, good question. Um, so, uh, like you, I I caught the bug, uh, you know, technology wise, you know, over 30 years ago.

In fact, I, I'd rather not, uh, share how far You be above I Go, right? But, um, you know, my, my dad was a small town physician and I, I, um, held him in such high regard. You know, he would take care of people every day, do house calls, get paid, and, and, you know, whether it be produce and people couldn't pay the bill.

And I, I absolutely wasn't going the science route. Didn't have it in me, but, um, you know, really, um, got bitten by the technology bug and, and that led to cyber. I've been in cyber now almost 30 years, and, you know, I, I really believe in what we do every day.

Um, wake up. We, we protect brands. We protect nation states, we protect governments.

What we do, um, again, uh, I think makes this world a a safer place every day and, and, um, love how it changes. Um, and, uh, it, it is absolutely a dynamic environment. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Um, how long have you been the president and CO at Sonal? Two years.

Just over two years, Alan. Um, and So it's interesting. Two years, huh?

Uh, I, I have, uh, a few more gray hairs, uh, throughout those years, but, you know, it's been, honestly, it's been a great two years. I've been with Sonic Ball now over seven years and, and was asked to step into the current role. I've been in large part throughout my career.

I've been in sales, um, uh, sales facing and, and customer partner facing roles. So, um, was asked to step into this role. Um, my reply to that was I'd be interested as long as we can, you know, take SonicWall to the next level.

We've been around as, you know, over 30 years. Mm-Hmm. 1 million, um, sensors throughout 215 countries and territories, all providing threat data, and we're gonna talk about that.

But, you know, the Sonic Wall, um, really needed to go to the next level. And, and over the past couple of years really credit to my team. But we've been going through a significant transformation, new leadership, um, new platforms.

We hadn't done an acquisition in over 15 years. We did three and four months. Um, wow.

And, you know, we're, we're doubling down on our partners. Now, as a result, we're seeing a RR grow, MRR grow, partner growth, um, double digit. Um, and it's an exciting time.

And again, as I said, um, credit to the team. That's fantastic, man. You know, as you mentioned, we have a kind of similar heritage.

Um, look, most of us knew SonicWall was firewall boxes right out and UTMs and, you know, defending the castle around at the mode and the drawbridge and all that. But today, SonicWalls, as you mentioned, a very different SonicWall, you mentioned, I think there were three acquisitions in four months. That's, that's a lot of work, right?

com days, I, I was part of a roll up. We wound up going public. We did 30 in 36 months.

Oh, I, so, I, I am No, no. Uh, yeah, no, but I will tell you a lot of, I'm impressed. You know what they say, you gotta break some eggs to make omelets, and not all of 'em went so well.

But why don't, if you don't mind, give us a, a quick recap of these three acquisitions you guys have. Sure, Sure. So, I mean, it, it, it's all driven Alan by the market and where the market is going based upon customers and, and partners.

And, you know, as you know, more and more is going to the cloud. So one of our key acquisitions was per, you know, a, a cloud native corporation, um, Banyan Securities Sure. Squarely into the SSE SAS E space.

Yep. Um, in addition to that, one critical layer of, of security that, you know, I isn't an option anymore is managed security services. So for this, you know, um, you know, we're, we're now offering 24 by seven by 365, uh, managed detection and response via, you know, multiple sots throughout the, the globe.

So really critical for any size, um, company Absolutely. Um, to provide this, that level of service. And then the other one where, again, we're, we're seeing more and more of a, a focus and, and, um, need is around endpoint.

So all three of those together, um, it, it's pretty cool. Um, now, seven, eight months later, you know, just a couple weeks back, we, we released our, our latest iteration of our, our integrating, essentially our firewall with the cloud native capability. So with every Sonic Ball firewall, you can immediately launch, you know, the, the cloud native SS, E-Z-T-N-A, um, capabilities, all comes invested with, uh, Sonic Ball Firewall.

And it, it's all around providing a hybrid solution and meeting our customers and partners where they are on their journey. So, exciting times a lot of work. It really is, you know, for those of us, like you and I have been in security a long time, at some level, it's gratifying to see security really being prioritized, prioritized the way we almost thought it should be.

Right? People are putting budgets, they're putting resources when they can. However, security still remains hard and almost beyond the reach of, except the biggest, you know, fortune 50 companies, maybe they have the resources.

That's why I think MSSP are so important, No Question, right? Because it, it brings that high level of security to an organization that just otherwise couldn't do it on their own. Um, but as you mentioned, you've got cloud, you've got endpoints.

I mean, not looking to pile on our friends at CrowdStrike, but you know, I think we, we are seeing the repercussions of having a monoculture a around, you know, a single vendor and so forth. So it's important that we have choices in the market, um, as where you sit and you sit in a great seat over there, right? How do you, you know, looking at the cybersecurity sector, are we, is it, you know, happy days are here again, let the good times row or, I mean, we're always one step away from disaster, it seems too, right?

Yeah. It, and, and I think that's important. A and I I, anytime we get to the position of, you know, good times, you know, we've, we've lost our edge.

Um, we're, we're in a cyber arms race, let's face it. And it, it's always trying to stay up with the attacks, trying to stay with, with the latest, um, relative to, you know, again, safeguarding our partners and our customers. You, you hit the nail on the head.

MSPs and MSPs play such a key role for so many of the organizations, um, across our country. There, there no question. And, and across the globe, um, they are an extension of, of the team.

And I would even argue, you know, for the top 50 companies, they too face significant challenges. Um, they can't hire the degree that they need to, they can't staff. So the more, you know, again, you, you always have to have that, that sense of, you know, what are we not doing?

Um, it used to be, you know, Bob, what keeps you up at night? Um, and yeah, I am concerned, and, and you know, the, the team, uh, again, stays up at night. So hopefully our, our customers and partners can rest.

But, you know, with this latest move towards managed security services, literally we are up 24 by seven by 365. So our, our customers and partners can take, you know, some solace in knowing that someone is watching, you know, over their networks. In fact, you know, the most attacks we find occur between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM.

Um, so you need that extended team, right? You need them, you know, sifting through the alerts. You know, so many IT teams have alert fatigue because they, they don't know which ones to respond to, which ones, you know, can, can be kind of, um, you know, left as is.

And you know, that's where, you know, whether it's ours or someone else's, I strongly encourage, you know, organizations leverage, uh, you know, a soc leverage, you know, put in place managed detection and response. You need it. It's a critical layer of security.

It is just very, very hard to do have Yeah. As it in the law. It really is.

Um, you know, I know you guys recently just this week put out a, uh, new threat report, right? Done. And, you know, how, how does that weave into your outlook?

1 million sensors. We gather threat telemetry every hour of every day from all those endpoints. And, you know, it's not just taking the data.

It's actually, you know, using that, um, data and then, you know, improving the security posture of our customers. I mean, for example, every given day we, we come upon approximately 500 never seen before attacks, which we immediately signature. We test take it through a QA process and, and multiple other, um, phases to ensure, you know, we're not, you know, causing it, uh, uh, you know, unexpected, uh, impact to our customers and then get those out.

Um, you know, it is critical that, that we remain vigilant and, you know, concerns. Yeah. 500 never seen before, attacks every day.

Um, know the overall total number of attacks. Alan went up 11%. This just the first five months of the year.

Now, to put that in perspective, that is over last year, and last year was up 20% over the year prior. So this sheer number of attacks continues to go up. And, and what's interesting, this team or, or our, our threat team actually put it within a context of, you know, think of a average business, let's say is open eight, eight hours a day.

Our average customer in firewall is seeing upwards of 10 to 12 hours of attacks throughout the day. So, you know, it, it, that's a scary number. And, you know, the sheer volume alone.

And then I'd add to that, not only is it sheer volume, but the, the attackers never stop. They're constantly pivoting. We, we've seen, you know, pivoting from ransomware attacks to malware attacks, to supply chain attacks, to IOT and Y, you know, it, it really makes, uh, it a, uh, a tough, uh, job, but again, needing to stay all the more reason to stay focused and driven.

Absolutely. You know, I, I wasn't always on this side of the camera. I, my last company, venture backed company that I founded was a security company still secure outta Boulder.

And I had a very similar experience. So I, I wound up morphing us into an MSSB, you know, because I just, I came to the realization that it was, that's what real people need. It's not enough just to give it used to being, you know, give a man a fishing or I teach him to fish, right?

They're capable, you gotta fish for them and bring the fishing, right. And ah, Right on. It's, It's a hard thing.

Um, we, we look at, you know, ai, everyone's talking about ai, and we, we look at some of the new, you know, the nation state attacks and, and, and people I think are finally getting to the point where they're saying, look, no matter how vigilant we are, no matter how vigilant stuff's gonna happen, yep. And we, we have to, we have to put more resources into response, not just prevention. I'm wondering if that's something SonicWall maybe through acquisition or organically looking at response, you know, helping companies respond to the latest ransomware or the latest attacks.

You know, God knows what vector's next, but, you know, to help in, in the response section, response side of things. Yeah. Great.

Great point. Um, it, and that is exactly why we moved into the managed security space. It's because you can't keep up.

Um, so many, so many organizations don't have the IT teams, whether it be off hours, whether it be weekends, whether it be, you know, on, on holidays. So we, we believe you absolutely need that layer of defense. So, you know, again, um, if somebody wants in 80% of the, the attacks we saw were credential related.

I mean, you, you mentioned ai, I mean the, the AI on, on the bad side. I mean, three years ago, you, you could read a phishing email and pretty much from, from syntax and grammar, Hey, this, this is, it is Funny. Now, it's really tough, right?

Oh, no. I find myself checking. I go back and look at the headers and I, I don't click on links.

I mean, I'm para You have to be paranoid. Yeah, you have to be, but you know, it only takes one. Um, so, you know, that's why having that MDR managed detection response, having someone that can step in, having that 24 by seven view, um, is critical because, you know, the attacks are gonna occur, and you need somebody right then and there to be able to thwart it, step in.

Um, you cannot assume that, Hey, I'm gonna put this, you know, firewall in, and I'm, I'm set. No, I'll be the first to say, no, that that isn't sufficient. You need the, the 24 by seven by 365, honestly.

But don't stop doing the other pieces too. The training, the awareness, um, you know, MFA, there are so many layers of security that, you know, every organization needs, you know, to put in place. Which is also why, you know, MSPs, MSPs can place such a critical role to be an extension of your team for so many of our organizations.

Agree, agree with you a hundred percent. Hey, I know you guys, you know, announced this, uh, new platform with r I'm wondering any plans around black hat? Um, we're actually gonna be rolling.

Um, it it out. We announced it at RSA. Thanks for, for snagging the coverage there.

Um, we're gonna be rolling it out right around, uh, black hat. And you know what, what's interesting, going back to what we just talked about relative to supporting MSPs and MSPs, um, I'm very excited and credit to the engineering pm um, teams relative to the, the new Sonic platform. What I actually think is even most exciting.

So it's, it's pulling together from a, a, a common viewpoint, the ability to do reporting management analytics. It's, it's, you know, double clicking into, you know, whether it be the state of endpoint or aps or switching or firewalls. But what I think is the biggest piece here, and it, it goes back to sowa really focused on taking an outside in approach and how do we best support our customers and partners?

We're, we're pursuing an, an open integration approach with, with our new platform. We know that we're not gonna have all the pieces. And to your point, it it, the environment's getting ever so much more complex and it's gonna continue.

So our focus actually with, with Sonic Platform is making it easy for our partners and customers to integrate other key pieces. There's no way we're gonna cover the bases and, and right now much less where things are moving, but the more we can and, and, and facilitate and make it easy for our customers and partners to integrate in other pieces to best provide the, the necessary security, the better. So, yeah, we're Excited.

I, again, I couldn't agree with you more, Bob. There's no way any one vendor, and I don't care how big the vendor is, can provide that soup to nuts. And, and when we do, we wind up with this monoculture disaster that we saw a week or two ago, right?

With everyone stuck in airports and everything, because then it's, you know, so I, I can't agree more with you on this. com is the URL, isn't it? Look at you, you're, i i I owe you a buck.

com, uh, a hundred percent channel, um, really, uh, really excited about the transformation we're we're going through. And, uh, yeah, it, it, uh, exciting times. Um, and, and, you know, love spending time with you, Alan, really appreciate, I Appreciate, I appreciate you coming up, Bob.

You know, the old Irish pro proverb, right? Mean you live in, in interesting times. I don't know if these are the interesting ones we want, but it certainly, they certainly are interesting times out there.

Don't know. But you know what, it's great to see in, in an, in a industry where, you know, everybody's always looking for the next shiny new trinket. It's good to see a solid brand, a solid company continuing to stay on top of their game.

And whether that be through organic development or, or acquisition or what have you, it's, it's great. So congratulations to you and the SonicWall team. Craig, the Team.

Thank you. Yep. We'll have and, and come back on.

Don't be a stranger. Oh, would Love it. All righty.

Bob Van, the Kirk, the best. Thank you. Bob Danki, president and CEO of SonicWall here on Textron tv.

We're gonna take a break. We'll be back in just a moment.