Indian risk and analytics vendor Subex has announced the rebrand of their cybersecurity product suite for the internet of things (IoT) and operational technology (OT). The new brand name is ‘Sectrio’, which is described as ‘a division of Subex’ on the new website created for this suite.
The rebranding further confirms the extent to which Subex seeks to increase sales outside of the telecoms sector. In addition to telecom, the Sectrio website has sections dedicated to each of the following sectors.
- manufacturing
- oil and gas
- smart cities
- enterprise
- defense
- maritime
- utilities
- healthcare
Subex says Sectrio has gained “significant market traction powered by an exponential increase in the capabilities of its award-winning product portfolio”. It is understandable that Subex wants to bet heavily on cybersecurity given the projected increase in expenditure by businesses and governments concerned about ransomware and other threats to networked technology.
The Subex User Conference in 2017 was the first event where they drew attention to the creation of a honeypot of IoT devices used to gather intelligence about hackers. Developing a cybersecurity honeyput was a divergence from Subex’s traditional strengths in RAFM and partner settlement, but it laid the foundations for Subex to reach new customers. The description of the honeypot has since evolved, with Subex now referring to it as “the largest IoT and OT focussed honeypot network” with devices located in 62 cities worldwide.
In 2017 I struggled to understand the sales pitch for Subex’s honeypot; it was not clear how they intended to monetize the honeypot or why the majority of Subex customers would care about its creation. Hindsight shows that Subex were ahead of the market, and the value of the honeypot is being realized by giving Subex an information advantage that is relevant to many more businesses than the telcos that represent Subex’s historic customer base. Subex have refined their cybersecurity message along with their product portfolio, placing less emphasis on the honeypot but better explaining what value they can add. Subex’s investment in the honeypot is feeding into the development of cybersecurity products and services for which there is increasing demand from organizations in a wide range of sectors.
