Normalyze CEO Amer Deeba Talks Data Security at Black Hat USA 2023

In this new information age, data is king — but with this value attached to data by individuals, corporations, and governments comes unique challenges.

Normalyze CEO and Founder Amer Deeba is well aware of the complexities now faced in protecting privacy and managing massive amounts of information. Normalyze is a cybersecurity company that helps its clients manage data and keep it secure. 

“Data is the biggest problem right now,” Amer Deeba told Trinity Chavez of NYSE TV in an interview during the Black Hat USA 2023 conference, which is internationally recognized for bringing together thought leaders in the cybersecurity space.

Securing data is the top priority for Normalyze. In a world of decentralized cloud computing, enterprises want to know where their sensitive data is located, how it's classified, and any risks it may be exposed to. 

Normalyze addresses this demand by helping its clients identify potential risks to their data. It does this through an industry-leading, artificial intelligence-driven, agentless data discovery and risk assessment platform. This entails a complete analysis of the client’s data and understanding how it’s used, where it’s stored, who has access to it, and its vulnerabilities. 

The tool helps security teams be better prepared against cyberattacks and data leaks from vulnerabilities. 

“We provide a full global inventory of sensitive data, where is it, who has access to it, and all the information we need to secure it. This is why we embarked on this innovation and we are very proudly showing it here at Black Hat,” shared Deeba. 

Mission accomplished for Deeba who, through years of experience, has served in leadership roles including chief commercial officer, chief marketing officer, and vice president of corporate development and strategic alliances at a number of enterprises. “We come here to learn, to network, to connect with each other, to exchange ideas, and to expand our cybersecurity horizons,” said Deeba. 

His company also set up a booth at the event presenting research presentations, customer engagement, conversations with chief information security officers and analysts, and product demos. Normalyze’s engagement at events like Black Hat is part of its broader commitment to collaborate with the community so it can better understand its needs and develop effective solutions. 

Attendees were able to take advantage of free cloud data audits performed by Normalyze’s security experts. These audits included a thorough data examination, identifying sensitive information, complete with a full assessment of how risks could be mitigated, and any additional steps that were needed to ensure regulatory compliance. 

The company also organized talks with security subject matter experts. Among the many speakers were Teza Mukkavilli, chief information security officer at ChargePoint; Damian Chung, business information security officer at Netskope; and Jade Graziano, cybersecurity engineer at Ginkgo. They shared their views on information security, the need for creating frameworks that prioritize data, how to implement best practices, and how to create harmony between business and engineering teams. 

In addition to talks and a product demo, Normalyze also organized a hands-on training session led by Abhinav Singh, the head of security research at Normalyze. The training was aimed at defenders working to secure their data in Amazon Web Services and Azure. The training focused on issues such as incident response, threat detection, forensic analysis, and malware investigations of data located in cloud infrastructure. 

“What you learn here, it's mainly you get a lot of these kinds of ideas in terms of new innovation, new research points that you could also incorporate into your technology,” shared Deeba.

Ravi Ithal, chief technology officer and co-founder at Normalyze, also announced the expansion of the cloud data security platform. Normalyze’s clients will now be able to take advantage of data security posture management, which is the company’s new data-driven approach to cloud data security. The data security posture management method creates a modern path to help clients understand their data’s security posture. It locates sensitive info and informs you about people who have access to it and their security posture. By following the guidelines of data security posture management, Normalyze’s clients can now quickly secure their organization’s data.

Black Hat 2023 proved to be a very fruitful event for the team at Normalyze. It not only exposed them to the developments in the cybersecurity world, but also gave other organizations a chance to learn what was new in the trailblazing cybersecurity enterprise.