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For the Cleveland Browns, the hunt is on for a first Super Bowl appearance. For managed detection and response company Binary Defense, the hunt is on for malicious actors othe dark web.
Together, the two make a good team, Binary Defense Head of Cyber Service Joe McMann told IT Brew.
“Binary Defense was founded in Stow, Ohio. [CTO and co-founder] Dave Kennedy grew up in the area,” McMann said. “So there’s a lot of pride in the local area.”
Rush defense. Binary Defense has been working with the Browns since August 2023. The company takes a “proactive” approach to cybersecurity, according to McMann, looking for threats across the dark web. Often, that means differentiating between bad actors and superfans—often a distinction that’s hard to parse.
“We’re looking at things like the dark web for any types of potential activity, conversation around that; we’re looking at social media for the same types of things,” McMann said. “We’re monitoring from a digital infrastructure perspective, looking for anybody that’s doing impersonation for either malicious purposes, brand, reputation, impact, etc.”
Around the horn. As IT Brew has reported, sports cybersecurity means companies and organizations have to manage threats for a number of people, from the superstars on the field to the fans in attendance. In April, Red Sox VP of Technology Operations and Information Security Randy George told us that “Major League Baseball has cyber training resources that they deploy to every spring training facility at the beginning of the season to educate players on the proper use of social media and other security related things.”
And it’s not only baseball. At the RSA Conference 2023, security leaders from the NHL, NFL, and NBA explained to a panel audience that they need to protect everyone.
“Normally, you probably went to the venue and came back, and you were happy or sad depending upon what the outcome was—you weren’t thinking about anything digitally impacting your experience,” NFL CISO Tomas Maldonado said. “And that’s because we were able to do our job in connecting the dots for you to be able to have that experience.”
Calling the play. Count Binary Defense in as a devotee of that philosophy. McMann told IT Brew that there’s more success in the cybersecurity world than defenders get credit for.
“There [are] a lot of great stories out there around bad things that have been stopped, prevented,” McMann said. “They don’t always make the news. But we’re all making progress.”