Email Security Firm Agari Crushes 2019 with 197% Growth in EMEA, Strategic Global Executive Hires, and Discovery of New Email Attack Type that Forces CISOs to Rethink Their 2020 Defense Plans

FOSTER CITY, Calif. and LONDON, Dec. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Email security and anti-phishing solutions firm Agari, the next generation Secure Email Cloud that restores trust to the inbox, announced today company momentum that will catapult it into 2020.

Agari executed flawlessly throughout the year on its global strategy to accelerate its long-held dominance, as the email security category leader. Solution innovation based on science, strategic hiring, and marketplace recognition resulted in existing customer reupping and a new crop of Fortune 1000 CISOs selecting Agari solutions over its competition. The company experienced explosive growth of 197 percent in the EMEA market while significantly expanding its North American toehold deeper into the U.S. and Canada.

"I want to take this opportunity to thank our customers across the globe. We had a successful 2019, because of our extremely loyal customers. You are why we get up every day and work to solve the most pervasive problems associated with phishing scams and related crimes," said Patrick R. Peterson, founder and CEO of Agari. "We close 2019 with our foot on the gas pedal and an eye toward an even more successful 2020."

Agari achieved key milestones throughout the year that drove impressive results.

Key Executive Moves at Agari

In November 2019, Agari tapped cybersecurity industry veteran, Ramon Peypoch, as its first Chief Product Officer. Peypoch, who is known for disruptive thinking that inspires deployable innovation, is charged with leveraging Agari's foundation built on science to imagine a new world of solutions that are additive to the company's existing product set.

In May 2019, Doug Jones joined Agari as Chief Business Development and Strategy Officer with the primary responsibility to build and nurture relationships throughout the email security and technology vendor ecosystem.

Armen Najarian, who joined Agari nearly two years ago, added to his role of CMO the duties of the Chief Identity Officer (CIDO). Najarian led the development and deployment of the global positioning strategy for the Agari Identity Graph, a competitive differentiator powered by AI to scale the real-time assessment of trillions of emails to determine "good" emails from the "bad."

The Marketplace Takes Notice

In May 2019, Battery Ventures, a global investment firm and cloud investor, recognized Agari as one of the 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Computing Companies To Work For, based on data specifically provided by Glassdoor*, one of the world's largest job and recruiting sites. The list highlighted 50 privately held companies—all business-to-business, cloud-computing companies--where employees reported the highest levels of satisfaction at work, according to employee feedback shared on Glassdoor. The distinction placed Agari at number 48 (out of 50 total).

Building on its heritage of being recognized as a "cool vendor" by the industry analyst community, Agari was profiled, ranked and referenced in more than 10 industry analyst reports, throughout 2019, including winning the top ranking and award for AI-based email security solutions, outpacing its competitors.

Cybercrime Magazine called out Agari, as one of the "hot" cybersecurity firms to watch going into 2020. In December 2019, SC Media announced that Agari had once again been named one of only five finalists for the security industry's most prestigious awards, marking three years in a row. Winners will be announced in early 2020 at the RSA annual conference.

A New Attack Type Discovered

In September, Agari along with CISO Mark Ferguson, announced live on Yahoo!Finance TV the discovery of a new email security threat that is nearly undetectable, Vendor Email Compromise (VEC). A cybergang, dubbed Silent Starling, is one of the prime users of the VEC attack method. Agari Cyber Intelligence Division (ACID), the counterintelligence unit of Agari that works with law enforcement to take down email fraudsters and bad actors, globally, uncovered Silent Starling's covert activities to penetrate vendor inboxes, sending social-engineered invoices based on context gained while reading vendor emails to customers, and then re-routing the invoice payments to the fraudsters bank accounts. Agari stimulated a global conversation, raising awareness of Vendor Email Compromise, which is the biggest threat CISOs will grapple with in 2020. Companies Agari identified as impacted by Silent Starling's tactics and law enforcement were notified.

CISOs use ACID quarterly threat actor dossiers to "see around corners" and leverage Agari solutions to anticipate and obviate threat actor tactics before these tactics penetrate their businesses.

Agari DMARC Market Dominance Continued

Agari founder and CEO Patrick R. Peterson is known as the godfather of DMARC, the global standard for email authentication and the first basic step in email security. Throughout 2019, Agari worked with the largest companies in the world to set their DMARC policies at reject. Agari protects more than 165,000 corporate domains and 83 percent of those are set at p=reject, making Agari the dominate player in email authentication and the reduction of brand spoofing abuse.

Election Security Threats Identified

Agari believes that it should be the American people who decide the next U.S. president, not nation-states. To that end, in April 2019, Agari leveraged its horsepower in the email security ecosystem to offer 2020 U.S. presidential campaigns its battle-proven software solutions free of charge. It launched what is believed to be the first registered voter poll on the impact of campaign brand abuse and phishing attacks on presidential campaigns, in October 2019. Sixty-nine percent of registered voters say that foreign interference in 2020 U.S. presidential election campaigns is a threat to U.S. democracy. Hacks hurt votes and donations: Receiving a phishing email would prevent a majority (61 percent) of registered voters from donating to the specific campaign from which the email appeared to come; 59 percent of respondents said receiving a phishing email from one campaign would negatively impact their donation to other 2020 U.S. presidential election campaigns. Overall, 42 percent of registered voters said that an email hack on a campaign would make them not vote for a candidate or question doing so. 

Agari Enables Customers to "Go Back to the Future"

Disruptive innovation is an Agari hallmark. In March 2019, Agari launched its latest technology called Continuous Detection and Response, that is specifically built to discover latent email threats in customers' inboxes and then pull them out and remediate them. In October 2019, Agari announced even more features to Continuous Detection and Response, which is deployed through its anti-phishing threat product. ACID threat intelligence now feeds directly into this technology so that customers have game-changing insights in real-time and can act quickly.  

About Agari
Agari is transforming the legacy Secure Email Gateway with its next-generation Secure Email Cloud powered by predictive AI. Leveraging data science and real-time intelligence from trillions of emails, the Agari Identity Graph™ detects, defends and deters costly advanced email attacks including business email compromise, spear phishing and account takeover. Winner of the 2018 Best Email Security Solution by SC Magazine, Agari restores trust to the inbox for government agencies, businesses and consumers worldwide. Learn more at www.agari.com.

Agari Media Contact:
Jean Creech Avent
Sr. Director, Global Corporate Communications
Agari
+1 843-986-8229
[email protected]

SOURCE Agari

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