KnowBe4 announced its explosive year over year growth of 358% for Q4 2015, with a record number of new corporate accounts and a stellar customer retention rate of over ninety percent. Fueling this growth is the strong demand for its Kevin Mitnick Security Awareness Training and integrated phishing platform. KnowBe4 has seen 2014-2015 annual growth of over 350% and consecutive growth for a record 10 straight quarters with an impressive 950% growth rate since 2011. Rapidly rising scams such as the Business Email Compromise (BEC) and new ransomware strains targeting businesses have helped propel the need for a better way to manage the problem of social engineering.
KnowBe4 helps IT pros to better manage this problem, training users to recognize social engineering red flags and utilizing a robust platform of tools that enable IT to send simulated phishing emails to users who can be given immediate remedial training. Users can also use the built-in Phish Alert Button to send any suspicious email to IT. This gives IT an added “human firewall” layer of defense and contributes to a strong security culture.
“IT managers are grateful, as they are being recognized as helpful coworkers rather than the network police,” said KnowBe4 CEO Stu Sjouwerman. “It fosters cooperation and an overall improvement in security.”
“Ninety-one percent of data breaches are caused by phishing and spear-phishing, a common tool in the hacker arsenal,” said Sjouwerman. “Many companies have found that old school annual training using a 15 minute PowerPoint presentation with coffee and donuts to keep employees awake doesn’t work. IT managers and CISOs are increasingly choosing KnowBe4 because we get results,” said Sjouwerman.
“Risk managers know it is far cheaper to train users than pay the fines and heavy costs associated with a data breach, estimated by Juniper Networks to account for $2.1 trillion dollars by 2019,” noted Sjouwerman.
As a result, security awareness training has gone from the lunchroom to the boardroom in priority, exceeding a billion in worldwide annual revenue as per Gartner.
Lloyd’s of London estimated cybercrime costs businesses as much as $400 billion a year, a staggering amount by any standard. This doesn’t take into account hacks and breaches that are unregulated and unreported.
“People are used to having a technology solution [but] social engineering bypasses all technologies, including firewalls. Technology is critical, but we have to look at people and processes. Social engineering is a form of hacking that uses influence tactics,” said KnowBe4’s Chief Hacking Officer Kevin Mitnick.
