Interview With Otavio Freire – SafeGuard Cyber

Aviva Zacks Aviva Zacks

We sat down with Otavio Freire, President, CTO, and Co-Founder of SafeGuard Cyber, and asked him what SafeGuard Cyber does for enterprises. Aviva Zacks of Safety Detectives found out that the platform protects enterprises from digital risks.

Safety Detectives: What do you love about cybersecurity?

Otavio Freire: There is never a dull moment in cybersecurity, and the media shares cybersecurity twists and turns daily from disinformation to ransomware attacks, to executive impersonation, and more. 

Cybersecurity makes for amazing conversations. Just before COVID-19 hit, our team here at SafeGuard Cyber hosted an event with industry leaders talking about future threats. We had certainly never dreamt of nation-states interfering with elections over social media channels 20 years ago. 

SD: What is SafeGuard Cyber’s flagship product?

OF: SafeGuard Cyber is a SaaS platform designed to protect critical technology investments such as collaboration, chat, and social media channels ensuring compliance, to scale globally. With SafeGuard Cyber’s direct APIs, there is nothing to install. The platform harnesses the power of AI/ML to simplify the complexity of finding critical threats quickly while reducing false positives. Risks don’t respect silos. 

SafeGuard Cyber captures all interactions in one central platform to drive real-time risk analysis with agentless protection and gain business insights from key communication channels. The platform is configured with an advanced policy engine that provides visibility, stops threats, and ensures compliance across digital communication channels enabling a comprehensive digital risk protection solution for the enterprise.

SD: What verticals use SafeGuard Cyber and why? 

OF: SafeGuard Cyber provides security and compliance in the following industries: Financial Services, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, Healthcare, Education, Technology, Media & Entertainment. 

All of our customers are focused on protecting their brand assets, executives, and employees while undergoing digital transformation. Whether we are enabling better customer experiences, efficient collaboration, or protecting new sales communication channels, the SafeGuard Cyber Platform provides a comprehensive security solution.  

SD: What is the worst cyberthreat today?

OF: The number one threat today is lack of visibility. The broad adoption of collaboration, chat, and social channels, such as Microsoft Teams, and Slack, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn, coupled with the rapid expansion of work-from-home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic, has created an expansive attack surface with huge cyber risk exposure for the enterprise. These digital communication channels operate with a volume and velocity that is rapidly outpacing email.

However, these channels are far less fortified, with interactions occurring outside the network perimeter, rendering them practically invisible to security teams. These vulnerabilities have now captured the attention of cybercriminals and nation-state actors, creating a perfect cybersecurity storm.

SD: How important is executive protection for enterprises in light of COVID-19 and the increase of employees working from home?

OF: Executives are targeted during these uncertain times. Just this past week, the Twitter attackers also managed to gain access to the direct message history of 36 of the 130 individuals whose accounts were taken over. Twitter direct messages (DMs), as with other channels, are private. 

The trend to remote working has accelerated with the shift of the workforce from enterprise premises to employees’ homes during COVID-19. Without the necessary security provisions to protect this highly distributed remote environment from attacks and breaches (even if the remote VPN transport is in fact highly secure), businesses will be impacted as home networks with their legacy routers, PCs, and IoT devices have significant vulnerabilities.

About the Author
Aviva Zacks
Aviva Zacks
Cybersecurity Expert and Writer

About the Author

Aviva Zacks is a content manager, writer, editor, and really good baker. When she's not working, she enjoys reading on her porch swing with a cup of decaf.