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Interview of
ASAF LIFSHITZ,
Co-Founder and CEO of Sayata Labs
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Rudra Srinivas 17
Asaf is the co-founder of Sayata Labs, an enterprise-grade risk
assessment solution for the cyber insurance industry. Before founding
Sayata Labs, Asaf was a Consultant at the Boston Consulting Group,
advising clients on their strategic business issues. After graduating from the
IDF’s elite Talpiot Program for R&D leadership, Asaf worked as a Physicist
in the Ministry of Defense. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business
School, an M.Sc. in Physics, and a B.Sc. in Physics and Mathematics.
CISO MAG | June 2019 CISO MAG | June 2019
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1. How did you decide
to start a business?
The idea for Sayata Labs emerged
when my partners and I identified
a unique opportunity to bring our
cybersecurity and data science
expertise to bear for small and
medium-sized businesses. We
noticed that the cybersecurity
industry had several structural
problems, and after conducting
thorough research, determined
that the cyber insurance industry,
in which actual performance
can be measured, is perfectly
positioned to tackle these
challenges. Of course, we knew
that addressing these issues would
require a team with critical skillsets
in cybersecurity, insurance, and
data science. We assembled a very
strong team with a proven track
record of success in these fields
and developed a solution which
provides deep insights into cyber
risks, at scale.
2. What are the biggest
challenges you face
as the founder of a
startup?
As a startup, we need to be
extremely agile and quick. One
of the biggest challenges we face
is quickly growing our team to
keep up with customer demand.
The cyber insurance industry is
rapidly expanding and that puts
more pressure on us to meet that
demand. Additionally, cyber risk
is a sensitive topic, especially for
the SMB market, and requires us to
educate the market as to the nature
and depth of the risks involved.
This takes time, but the hackers
aren’t waiting.
3. How are you
tackling the awareness
problem? What does
your outreach to SMBs
look like?
We emphasize that small and
medium-sized businesses
are increasingly aware of the
importance of cybersecurity
and the potentially devastating
consequences of getting it wrong.
They’ve seen the effects of cyber
attacks up close: 43% of all cyberattacks
target SMBs. But complex
threats require sophisticated
solutions, and SMBs don’t usually
have the time and proper toolset to
deal with these threats effectively.
With Sayata’s advanced technology,
SMBs receive full visibility into
their organizations’ level of risk.
We designed our system to be
intuitive, with a seamless user
experience for customers even
if they have limited technical
knowledge of cybersecurity issues.
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The system is created in a way that
no special knowledge is required
and the system is extremely
simple and quick. Our focus is
on what’s most important for SMB
leaders: providing a clear, full view
of an organization’s risk exposure,
so we can enable them to address
any issues or vulnerabilities
facing their businesses. For those
who want to delve further into
the technical aspects, we provide
deeper explanations and userfriendly
recommendations.
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4. What’s Sayata’s
approach in assessing
a company’s risk
exposure?
Sayata’s data science and
cybersecurity experts understand
the vulnerabilities, exploits, and
potential attacks that cause cyber
breaches. This, combined with
our insights into factors that are
predictive of actual cyber losses,
enable us to pinpoint a company’s
risk exposure with exceptional
accuracy.
A major challenge is that there is
generally a tradeoff between the
depth of a cyber assessment and
the ease of using it. We created
advanced technology to enable
the use of deep analytics, but
also made it simple, efficient, and
understandable so it can be used
at scale. Additionally, as the cyber
threat landscape evolves, the
solutions need to evolve as well.
We are dynamic and check for a
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range of relevant factors so we can
detect these changes quickly.
Sayata is bridging the worlds of
cybersecurity and insurance so
that together we can improve
SMBs’ cyber posture at large.
5. You have held a
wide range of titles
before founding
Sayata Labs. How was
your transition from a
researcher to a CEO?
Looking back, it’s clear that
everything on my path prepared
me for Sayata Labs. As a researcher,
I dealt with complex problems
in experimental and theoretical
physics, which required me to
better understand the world,
create models, and check their
assumptions to obtain results.
As a commander in an elite
technological unit in the Israel
Defense Forces, I learned to be a
successful leader among dozens
of extremely talented individuals.
Then, as a Harvard Buisness school
graduate and a consultant at BCG,
I learned how to identify and
address strategic challenges in
various industries in a methodical,
scientific way; in this case, I was
studying not electrons and protons,
but the actions and behavior
various actors such as cyberattackers
and defenders. Once we
started Sayata, this diverse range
of experiences equipped me to
effectively lead our company in
our mission to apply our team’s
wealth of knowledge, technical
expertise and strategic insights to
help organizations address their
most urgent problems.
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