Vectra Hires Cylance Veteran Didi Dayton for MDR Partner Push

Vectra has hired Cylance veteran Didi Dayton as vice president of worldwide channels and alliances, the company confirmed today. Dayton's career  move comes as Vectra scales its network cyberattack detection and response business, and as Blackberry digests the recent Cylance acquisition.

Vectra's Cognito platform is designed for managed detection and response (MDR) partners. The timing for Dayton's arrival at the company appears ideal. In recent years, the line between next-generation MDR providers and traditional MSSPs has blurred. Indeed, MSSPs are increasingly moving into the MDR market as customers seek new ways to mitigate cyber threats.

Vectra is positioned to assist MSSPs and MDR providers with those customer needs. The company's Cognito platform consists of two products: Cognito Detect and Cognito Recall. Together, those products provide organizations with full visibility into cyberattacker behaviors from cloud and data center workloads and user and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, Vectra indicated.

Vectra Cognito Detect & Cognito Recall: MDR Explained

Cognito Detect helps organizations identify hidden and unknown cyberattackers in real-time, according to Vectra. It offers data science, behavioral analytics and machine learning capabilities to help organizations analyze cyberattack details and map out their cybersecurity efforts accordingly.

Comparatively, Cognito Recall allows organizations to hunt for cyber threats and identify devices or workloads accessed by compromised accounts and files involved in data exfiltration, Vectra stated. It also provides insights into compromised devices and workloads and stores historical incident metadata in the cloud.

The company integrated its Cognito threat hunting platform with Microsoft Azure and the Azure Virtual Network Terminal Access Point (TAP) in September 2018.

Vectra Partner Program Engages MDR Service Providers

Looking ahead, Dayton will help MDR partners to deliver real-time detection of hidden cyberattacks, AI-assisted threat hunting and incident investigations for their customers, the company indicated.

In a prepared statement, Vectra Senior VP of Worldwide Field Operations Kevin Moore stated:

Added Dayton:

Meanwhile, BlackBerry Cylance has named Brian Stoner acting VP of worldwide channels, essentially succeeding Dayton.