Booz Allen spins off cybersecurity product SnapAttack
Booz Allen Hamilton, a McLean, VA-headquartered technology consulting firm, has spun off SnapAttack, a cloud-based software solution for cyber threat hunting and detection.
The new company will include a dedicated technical team and the SnapAttack product, which enables community collaboration in threat intelligence, attack emulation, and detection analytics. The solution helps commercial and government clients identify vulnerabilities and risks and then strengthen systems before threat actors attempt similar techniques on infrastructure.
SnapAttack was created within Booz Allen DarkLabs, a team of researchers, threat hunters, analysts, and data scientists that focuses on preventing cyberattacks. The team has extensive expertise in cyber defense (blue teaming), cyber offence (red teaming), and threat hunting in commercial and government contexts.
SnapAttack developers Fred Frey and Tim Nary will serve as chief technology officer and chief product officer, respectively, of the new firm.
“Spinning out products like SnapAttack is one example of how we incubate internally and scale externally―an approach that allows us to focus on our strength of developing leading technology, then carefully identifying the best opportunities in the market for its long-term growth,” said Susan Penfield, chief innovation officer at Booz Allen and head of the firm’s strategic innovation group. “In doing so, we empower Booz Allen’s innovators to create and scale leading-edge products and obtain an equity stake in the products they help build.”
Booz Allen will maintain a significant minority stake in the new company. Additional investors in SnapAttack include Volition Capital and Strategic Cyber Ventures.
Booz Allen will also have a strategic partnership with SnapAttack, serving as primary channel partner for the product to its federal client base.
“SnapAttack will now have even more opportunity to scale at the pace of clients, address urgent threat detection needs, and access a broader ecosystem of innovators and capital investment to help it grow as the industry standard in proactive security and hacker tradecraft,” said Patrick Gorman, executive vice president and a leader in Booz Allen’s cybersecurity business.
Booz Allen has approximately 29,200 people globally and annual revenue of $7.9 billion.
