Exclusive Interview with Srinivas Mukkamala, Senior Vice President, Security Products at Ivanti

In today's disparate workplace IT is dealing with more devices, more platforms, more apps, more networks, hybrid cloud environments, and more services. Ivanti is an IT and security software company that enables and protects the Everywhere Workplace. In the Everywhere Workplace employees are accessing company networks from a variety of devices and locations. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Srinivas Mukkamala, Senior Vice President, Security Products at Ivanti.

1. Kindly brief us about the company, its specialization, and the services that the company offers. 

Ivanti is an IT and security software company that enables and protects the Everywhere Workplace. In the Everywhere Workplace employees are accessing company networks from a variety of devices and locations. In today's disparate workplace IT is dealing with more devices, more platforms, more apps, more networks, hybrid cloud environments, and more services. To alleviate the pressure IT, Operation Teams, and Developers are facing, Ivanti built an integrated solution that leverages our autonomous platform to find and protect every device, user, and software, so our customers don't have to. This has never been more important than it is today. Ivanti is a critical enabler of this new era of work with our self-healing, self-securing, self-servicing technology.

2. What is your biggest USP that differentiates the company from competitors? 

There are many vendors who compete with us on a single solution, but we are the only vendor able to discover, manage, secure and service all the devices in an organization using AI-driven automation to detect issues and then perform actions or remediation to self-heal before impacting users. Ivanti also provides IT teams with the benefit of a single view for management across all the devices accessing the sensitive data of their organization.

3. Please brief us about the products/services/solutions you provide to your customers and how do they get value out of it 

Ivanti is the provider of the Ivanti Neurons hyper-automation platform that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to address the growing demands placed on IT and security teams amid the global shift to remote and hybrid work. It autonomously self-heals and self-secures devices and provides personalized self-service experiences to end-users. Ivanti Neurons uses automation bots to provide real-time intelligence across all assets in the Everywhere Workplace, including every endpoint and IoT edge while delivering a consumer-grade employee experience.

4. How can end-users put their organizations at risk of a ransomware attack? And how can Ivanti solutions preempt & prevent this? 

Unpatched systems are the leading cause of ransomware attacks today and are increasing in frequency and severity every year. The impact on companies is devastating. These attacks typically lead to lost business for companies as they often cause increased customer turnover, system downtime, diminished reputation, and other adverse side effects. Ransomware attackers are increasingly targeting mid-market companies to avoid the media attention that comes from attacking large enterprises.

Ivanti is constantly sharing our lessons learned via our Spotlight Report Series to raise awareness and provide actionable information. Organizations must take steps to protect themselves. Patching to fix Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVEs) is one of the best steps an organization can take to counter ransomware attacks. Unfortunately, research from Ivanti shows that 71% of IT and security professionals find patching to be overly complex and time-consuming.

Ivanti has been a leader in patch management for years, and as the ransomware threat elevated, we ramped up our efforts to stay ahead of the problem.

Ivanti has the most robust data on patches, vulnerabilities, and exploits. In August, Ivanti acquired RiskSense, which enables us to drive the next evolution of patch management, grounded in a proactive risk-based approach. Ivanti differentiates itself from our competitors by our intelligence on which vulnerabilities are tied to ransomware and because organizations can also leverage our capabilities to quickly remediate the threat. These unique capabilities build on each other for a blended offering that is unmatched in the market today.

5. What are some of the challenges faced by your company today? 

This is a critical time in cybersecurity. For example, ransomware experienced a stunning surge in prevalence and sophistication throughout the pandemic. Following the rapid shift to remote work, remote access services became easy and primary targets for bad actors, with phishing often used as the attack vector. Ransomware remains a universal problem that is not going away. At Ivanti, one of our core values is to Fight the Good Fight and this means that we wake up every day with a commitment to enable, prepare, and protect our customers so they can drive their own business success. This is a large undertaking, but we are up to the challenge.

6. What's your growth plans for the next 12 months? 

Our growth plans for the next year include planned updates to our Ivanti Neurons platform and continually enhancing solutions across the entire platform. We also are focused on different verticals and departments that historically didn't utilize a service management platform and relied on manual processes, such as facilities and human resources. We are working on finding more ways for our solutions to alleviate the strain IT and security teams are facing and that is opening up a tremendous avenue for growth.