High-Assurance Cybersecurity and Digital Collaboration Leaders Hotshot and HighSide Announce Merger, New Global Customer and Expanded Board
Proven innovators in government and private sector cybersecurity deliver a new approach to global data access, compliance and identity management
Nov 12, 2019, 10:41 ET
BETHESDA, Md. and ESCH-SUR-ALZETTE, Luxembourg, Nov. 12, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, high-assurance security and mobile-first collaboration leaders HighSide and Hotshot Technologies announced their merger, and the signing of their first joint customer win with a GLOBAL 100 organization in the material sciences industry.
As a result of the merger, Hotshot's award-winning time- and location-based identity policy enforcement unites with HighSide's proven zero-trust messaging platform to address crucial challenges for today's enterprises in one solution. The intellectual property of the new organization creates a new class of zero-trust identity and communications products and services, offered under the HighSide brand. These include HighSide Messaging and Collaboration and HighSide Identity Services.
And, the combined entity has added Ron Gula to their board of directors. Gula is cofounder and former CEO of Tenable Network Security, a multi-billion dollar publicly traded cybersecurity company, and President of investment firm, Gula Tech Adventures focused on next generation cyber technology, strategy and policy. He began his cybersecurity career as a network penetration tester for the NSA and has over 25 years of experience in the Cyber Security industry.
Mr. Gula said, "HighSide enables organizations to have secure and collaborative communities. It is ideal for financial, government and healthcare industries that struggle securing email and want a modern collaboration system, but need compliance and on-premise options."
This merger creates a platform where organizations can create high-integrity digital identities to share information through a unified communications app on any device, which Slack doesn't deliver, plus built-in identity authentication and authorization controls that the likes of Okta, Cisco Duo and Microsoft Authenticator don't offer. The result reduces business's risks associated with cyberattacks like data breaches, reputational damages, customer attrition, financial loss, fines and more.
The new company will operate under the HighSide brand, and will be the first zero-trust, distributed identity, mobile-first collaboration platform in the market with high assurance for the security of shared documents and access to files and information.
"Two prominent themes we encounter almost every day in our research are identity policy and zero trust security," explained Dr. Edward Amoroso, CEO of TAG Cyber, a research and advisory firm. "The merger of Hotshot and HighSide will no doubt result in an effective, and no doubt popular, protection solution for unified communications in the enterprise."
The new organization has incomparable technology solutions to secure:
- Protecting critical IP for global enterprises
- Protecting users from email-delivered threats and accidental data leakage through consumer messaging applications
- Delivery of "High-Assurance Collaboration" for organizations that prioritize protecting their trade secrets and customer data even in the most-hostile environments
Hotshot and HighSide have been technology development partners for two years. The merger combines their business development and technology implementation efforts to accelerate market penetration for the unified entity. The market has already validated the strategy with a $5+ million multi-year deal that has just been signed with a GLOBAL 100 materials science enterprise which will use the combined technologies to protect their most-sensitive intellectual property from nation-state attackers.
Hotshot launched in early 2018 with a secure, compliant mobile-first messaging, collaboration and identity management for businesses. Their easy-to-deploy app and patent-pending location-and-time-based encryption technology enabling businesses to easily and affordably address the combination of complex security, compliance and labor laws across the globe, including GDPR, CCPA, HIPPA, SEC, ITAR, France's 'right to disconnect' law and more.
Hotshot founder, President and Chief Security Officer of HighSide, Aaron Turner says, "I have been immersed in the most pressing information security problems in recent decades, and the merger of HighSide and Hotshot is one of the most-exciting projects I've been part of. It provides an unprecedented solution for identity assurance and data protection, even against the most-sophisticated attackers." Turner was recently recognized as one of the five most-influential cybersecurity executives of the last 30 years by SC Magazine.
HighSide was formed in 2015 providing a modern unified communications & file sharing platform to teams in the private and public sectors, including voice, video, text & files, reducing risk of shadow IT, as well as reliance on dated/insecure communications channels.
Since their inception, HighSide has built a trusted relationship with many of the most demanding customers requiring high-security messaging and collaboration -- including the government and military intelligence communities. With proprietary end-to-end encryption, password-less authentication technology and user identity management, HighSide protects people and the bottom line by securing organizations' weakest links against internal and external threats through solutions for GDPR, ITAR, HIPAA, FISMA, SEC/FINRA, etc.
HighSide founder and CEO Brendan Diaz says, "Our team of security experts and ex-NSA hackers have spent the last four years analyzing how enterprise organizations are breached by internal and external threats and how nation-state attackers have compromised first-generation messaging platforms. The post-merger HighSide is uniquely positioned to help enterprises meet compliance requirements, improve productivity, and massively reduce cybercrime related risks."
The merger comes on the heels of recent industry recognition including the Fortress Cyber Security Award in June 2019, and the Cyber Defense Global Award in October 2019.
About HighSide
HighSide is the unified communications & file sharing platform that looks & functions like the tools your employees want to use, with security & compliance functionality required by the C-suite & regulators. HighSide differentiates and improves upon alternatives in 3 key areas, empowering, protecting and enhancing your team. HighSide gives your team access to a modern unified communications & file sharing platform including voice, video, text & files, reducing risk of shadow IT and reliance on dated and insecure communications channels. Post-merger, the organization will be headquartered in Bethesda, MD, and offices in New York, NY, Plano, TX, and Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg.
About Hotshot®
Hotshot® is a secure, easy-to-use platform for team messaging that is compliant with labor laws and regulatory requirements. It harnesses the speed, convenience and efficiency of texting while reducing employer liability concerning privacy and security. Designed by an international team of compliance and security experts, Hotshot uses state-of-the-art encryption to protect data wherever it may be and whenever it is needed. Hotshot has EU headquarters within the Technoport® ltd. business incubation program, in partnership with the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade, and North American headquarters in Plano, TX.
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