SaaS Startup Simplifies Post-Breach Compliance

A startup that will officially come out of stealth mode on Wednesday has built a software-as-a-service offering for organizations to handle the mostly manual processes involved in responding to a data-loss breach.

Co3 Systems, based in Cambridge, Mass., is headed up by an executive team that hails from key security firms such as Symantec, McAfee, Counterpane, Arbor Networks, Application Security, @stake, and Verdasys. The firm's new SaaS offering encompasses event preparedness, data event analysis, liability assessment, and incident response workflow.

Most of these steps today are handled manually, and mishandling or mistakes can be costly, said Ted Julian, chief marketing officer at Co3 Systems. "[Victim organizations] are doing it themselves, with manual processes and spreadsheets," he said. Or they hire third-party forensics and incident response expert firms such as Mandiant, he said.

"The security industry is focused on pre-incident. There's very little on post-incident," Julian said.

Jon Oltsik, principal analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group, said Co3 has pulled together the tools for best practices for conducting due diligence in the aftermath of a data breach. "A lot of people make the mistake that it's all about incident response," Oltsik said of the post-breach phase. Co3's SaaS is more about the business process involved: how do you work with the legal and PR teams when your firm discovers it was breached, he said, or how do you get in touch with regulators. "All of those things have to be coordinated, and need to be managed," Oltsik said.

The SaaS offering incorporates regulatory reporting requirements, for example, and workflow management for all of the groups within an organization that have some role in the aftermath of a breach, including IT, security, privacy/compliance group, the legal department, and the finance and audit group.

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