SMBs Need Tools For Cyber Threat Detection Too: Xcitium

While there are plenty of excellent products for threat detection and response available today, many are too expensive for smaller businesses, an executive from cybersecurity vendor Xcitium says.

Many of the leading threat detection and response tools available today are out of reach from a cost perspective for small and midsized businesses (SMBs) and midmarket companies, an executive from cybersecurity vendor Xcitium said Monday.

Referring to some of the well-known providers of endpoint detection and response (EDR) products, Tim Bandos, executive vice president of cybersecurity services at Xcitium, said that while he’s “not bashing” the tools, they’re “too expensive.”

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Among smaller businesses, “no one can afford that,” Bandos said Monday at XChange March 2023, which is hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company and being held this week in Orlando. “This is where we have the idea of offering something for that midmarket and SMB market.”

Many smaller organizations are still targeted heavily by cyberattacks but lack comparable protection from a tools standpoint, because “it’s impossible to do that when you have something that’s extremely expensive,” said Bandos, formerly cybersecurity director for incident response and threat intelligence at DuPont.

Zac Paulson, CEO of Fargo, N.D.-based managed IT services and solutions provider TrueIT, told CRN that Xcitium is targeting what constitutes a major gap within cybersecurity.

“That’s one of the concerns I have about security — that it’s getting more and more expensive to defend yourself,” he said. While in one sense it’s understandable that this happens over time, “the small business is struggling with that, especially when looming recessions are out there,” Paulson said.

Ultimately, it’s smart for a vendor to offer a package of cybersecurity solutions targeting smaller businesses, “especially at that price point,” Paulson said.

Bandos said that Xcitium is targeting its managed detection and response (MDR) offering as “an MDR for the masses, that is actually affordable.”